South African businesses will need to resort to sourcing their own electricity in order to avoid the ongoing financial blows due to Eskom’s rolling blackouts.

The head of the school of economics at Wits University, Professor Jannie Rossouw says Eskom has failed to demonstrate how it plans to get over its problems which he notes has been dragging on for 15 years.

It comes as the power utility has yet again imposed a nearly week of load shedding on the country citing unit breakdowns, the need to replenish emergency reserves and not meeting its maintenance objectives.

Rossouw has questioned the timing of these power cuts as it coincides with Eskom wanting a more than 20% tariff hike. He says Eskom needs to be more transparent and should publish all its contracts for public scrutiny.