south africa has entered a dark age. as winter sets in, the power is off for up to 12 hours a day. it's notjust power failure. on a host of basic services — housing, policing and jobs — south africa's government is struggling to deliver. i would like to see a different government because i'm losing hope from our government.

south africans are realising that if they don't change the way they vote, south africa is going to end up in a very, very dark place. there will be anarchy, _ there will be looting all over this country because nothing will be working. - if certain things are not resolved we will become a failed state. the anc, mandela's party, has ruled uninterrupted for 29 years. is a day of reckoning coming? welcome to hardtalk, on the road from south africa. i'm stephen sackur. back in 1994, the one overwhelming emotion in this country was hope. the repressive, racist apartheid regime had been toppled.

the new power in the land was the african national congress, promising a better life for all south africans. well, three decades on, it's time to judge how the anc is doing. to too many south africans, this looks and feels like a story of failure. khayelitsha township, cape town. nestled under majestic table mountain, a sprawling reminder of south africa's status as the most unequal society on earth. in africa's most advanced economy, at least half of young people can't find work. life here is never easy but, right now, south africa's power crisis is hitting the poorest hardest. no—one in khayelitsha wants to be sick when the power is off,

but it happens every day. the main township hospital has had to adapt to what they call "load—shedding". the man in charge is david binza. with load—shedding now in place and the different stages, instead of reducing, they are actually increasing. we've had to adjust our lives and work around that. now, as we are going to get that at 12:00, we have to switch off our ct scan machine. scan machines have to go off? it has. that service has to come to a halt. because there's a danger that it could damage the machinery. we have experience of that. do you? it's notjust a danger, it was a lived reality. if we lose power, this machine switches off. our generator, before it takes off, is about two to three minutes. then it means this is going to be down for that much. so you're saying for two or three minutes a patient who is on this respirator, being kept alive by this respirator, suddenly the machine is going to go down.

yes. because there is no power. and then what happens? if we do not have an inverter, like we have inside now, then it means we will have to disconnect and manually bag that patient, ventilate that patient. you mean the nurses and the doctors have to literally manually pump the oxygen? yes. for the patient to be alive. because three minutes is just enough for the patient to get brain damage. exactly. so we cannot say we're going to wait for power and do nothing. this is an extra level of stress... absolutely. ..in an emergency situation anyway and suddenly you have to think about the power too. absolutely. and sometimes even if the generator takes over, which will then supply power to this wonderful piece of equipment, sometimes this wonderful piece of equipment packs up and it doesn't come back immediately. because the disturbance in the power means that the machinery goes wrong. absolutely.

it's 12 noon and the mains power has just gone off. it happens every day. today's power cut is supposed to last for four and a half hours. now, this hospital is fortunate — they have backup generators so the lights can come back on very quickly. but remember this — there are many smaller health care facilities across south africa which don't have those backup generators and where they're going to be without power for hours. the hospital has had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on diesel generators. that's money not going to patient care. the health sector has asked to be excluded from power outages. the government says that's impossible. so the prognosis for this winter, say health leaders, is grim. doctor, this is a difficult question, but be honest with me. are patients coming to harm

specifically because of the load—shedding reality? we've not had, fortunately, any incident where patients died or there's been significant harm, but i would say yes because, unfortunately, it does impact on patients�* lives because they can't get the care that they need at the time when they need it. we have to postpone the care. the patients have to come back when the load—shedding kicks in. this for a smaller facilities. for big hospitals like this, obviously the generator kicks in and we carry on. but at the smaller clinics, particularly in the rural areas and particularly in the poorer communities where we don't yet have our generators or inverters installed, people have to come back or they have to be diverted to other facilities, so that has obviously had an impact. countries in the world that

are going to experience or are experiencing this will say the same — we have to fix the load—shedding problem. i mean, this is not sustainable going forward. obviously, we've had to use funding to make sure we have generators functioning, we have to pay for the diesel, pay for fuel and install solar panels and inverters at a significant cost. but we have to fix the load—shedding. that's the long and short of it. south africa's power crisis has been a long time coming. for decades, it's relied on increasingly obsolete coal—fired plants. pleas from eskom, the state—owned energy company, for massive government investment were ignored for too long. incompetence has been compounded by corruption. a former boss of eskom alleges criminal cartels with connections inside government have siphoned billions out of the company. for many south africans, electricity is the only utility they have access to. in much of khayelitsha township piped water and sanitation

are a distant dream. when you drive through khayelitsha township itjust seems to go on and on and on. it is vast. we reckon about 1.4 million people live here, but the truth is nobody really knows, cos every year more and more migrants arrive here from the rural areas far beyond cape town. when it comes to service delivery, it's here that people are really feeling that the system isn't working. daily power cuts are killing local businesses. wiseman makabongwe bambatha runs an upholstery business. show me inside your business because i want to see how many machines use electricity. but when the power is off, so is his electric sewing machine. which of your machines

need electricity? it is the compressor and the two sewing machines. so one of your colleagues is on the sewing machine? yes. this cannot work when you have a power cut. i can't work without power. he can't meet orders, he loses business. this load—shedding is affecting us a lot. so if we close, then there are a lot of people... i've got four people working here, so then i've got to let... i have to... what, you'd have to let them go? i have to let them go because there will be no job if this load—shedding thing is going on. are all of your fellow shop owners, business owners, are they experiencing the same thing? i think they have experienced the same thing, as well. what about other basic services like water, sanitation, sewage? do you have these services? this is what our government promised us from 1994,

that it's going to provide for each and every one equal living, but it seems there's nothing like that happening. does that mean you would like to see a different government? i would like to see a different government because i'm losing hope from our government. but this is the anc. these are the people who say, "stay with us, "we gave you liberation." what would you say to that? anc is failing us a lot. i think they must... i think they must deliver a lot from what they promised because if they don't deliver, they're going to lose people. they're going to lose people a lot because they are failing us a lot. at anc headquarters injohannesburg, they are proud of their central role in south africa's liberation story, but the party of mandela is now a party in crisis. it's an anc government which can't keep the lights on and party boss

fikile mbalula knows the harder load—shedding hits south africa, the more damage it does to the ruling party. we are focused in terms of dealing with it. it is an achilles heel and i can't tell you tonight or any time that this is an easy matter for our government. surely, after covid—19, this is the biggest challenge that has actually faced us internally. it's very candid of you to say this is an achilles heel because achilles heels tend to bring people down and, if this continues, it will bring the anc down, won't it? it will affect the fortunes of the anc to achieve the outright majority. it will. how disappointed are you with the state south africa is in today? south africa is undergoing

challenges, like many other countries, but i think to put us into a category of a failed state, it's an exaggeration. do you think that's a conversation that south africans are having amongst themselves? well, it comes from pockets of the powerful thinkers in the country who project us as displaying characteristics of a failed state. of course, we may not be too defensive to that. if certain things are not resolved we will become a failed state. the impact of the power crisis reaches far beyond south africa's cities. a three—hour drive from cape town is some of the best citrus farming in the world. 60 tonnes of clementines harvested from just one hectare

of western cape soil, picked, sorted, packed and shipped to supermarkets in britain. robert paterson has built this farming business up over three decades. it relies on irrigation and that means it relies on the power to pump water. basically every crop in the western cape, apart from wheat and rooibos tea, is irrigated. so the entire western cape is totally dependent on a reliable power supply, which we haven't got. the western cape is a mediterranean climate, so we have a long, hot summer period with basically no rain and then a relatively short winter when it is supposed to rain, but for the past seven years we've

had way lower than average rainfall so we haven't been getting the winter rain that we need to fill our dams so that we can irrigate the orchards and vineyards and everything through the summer, so now we've become even more dependent on underground water. as i listen to you, i'm thinking this sounds like a nightmare scenario. you've got a long—term water shortage problem, which is being massively exacerbated by this immediate power problem. we only had this level of load—shedding from about january, february, so we have managed to survive this season, but if this happens next year, where we have another dry winter and we have stage six load—shedding, which is where we are 11 hours a day out, i don't know how we're going to do it, honestly. here's why irrigation matters so much. the local clanwilliam dam is atjust 16% of full capacity. climate change is hitting the western cape particularly hard. unreliable power could make farming here impossible. according to anne paterson, robert's wife and business partner, many farmers are struggling.

the agriculture sector, and with it hundreds of thousands of jobs, needs reliable power. we farm in a fairly good and affluent area, but other parts of the western cape and smaller farms who don't have the access to capital or access to financing at short notice would not have been able to buy generators on the hop and they would have lost their crops. we know of a couple of people that have actually lost their farms or have had to lease their farms orjust walk away from their farms. and you do not know how long this load—shedding challenge is going to last. exactly. we get promised that they're going to sort it out, but yet it just seems to be all talk and no action. i think, from a mental point of view

and from your psychic, we just don't know what the future holds. do you invest in your business? what do you do? we just don't know what the endgame is going to be. the thing is, if you feel like that, your neighbours feel like that, other businesspeople across this country feel like that, that's a catastrophe for the south african economy. n is. — we are all affected. all businesses are affected by this. it's the most serious thing you can do to the economy is to cut off the power supply. south africa's president, cyril ramaphosa, is in trouble and he knows it. the national disaster management centre has consequently classified the energy crisis and its impact as a disaster. he declared a state of national disaster as load—shedding worsened, but eskom still reckons outages may get worse as winter bites.

south africa's opposition parties sense an opportunity. polls show anc support falling below 50%. when you said not so long ago, "there is a changing of the guard coming in south africa. "the anc�*s decline is terminal. "it's just a matter of how fast," did you really believe that? of course i believed it and i think it's a fair assessment about where the anc find themselves. in the last local government elections in 2021, for the first time in post—democratic south africa they lost their majority and fell below 50%. this obviously allied with the fact that our economy is not growing. we've got 30 million people living in poverty, 12 million people unemployed, and load—shedding, rolling blackouts which have reached into every home and switched off the lights, switched off our factories and switched off our economy.

south africans are realising that if they don't change the way they vote, south africa is going to end up in a very, very dark place. south africa remains africa's most developed economy, from agriculture to mining to banking and tech, it still has vast potential, but 29 years after liberation from apartheid, few south africans would argue it's made the most of its assets. as the sun goes down on the cape town waterfront, it is still possible to glimpse mandela's rainbow nation — upbeat, optimistic, intent on reconciliation. but when darkness falls just a few miles away in khayelitsha township, the mood is as dark as the street lamps. indistinct radio message ijoined a patrol of law

enforcement officers tasked with crime prevention in an area wearily familiar with insecurity. when the lights are out, do you find that people stay indoors more? are there fewer people on the streets? actually, there is fewer people on the streets because of the darkness. cape town is the murder capital of a country which experienced 25,000 murders last year. criminal gangs, drugs, a policing system riddled with corruption and endemic poverty make for a poisonous cocktail. the levels of suspicion and fear rise when the lights are out. what are you doing with this stuff? this was a routine bust — drugs and knives, but no violence. just the background noise

of a society close to the edge. it's the two guys who smoked this. you guys come here. what is this that they are actually smoking here? immediately one can identify the criminal markings that'sl been etched all over- on the inside of the premises. there you see the number 28, - one of the notorious prison gangs. we came to this premises now- and we were able to remove some persons that shouldn't have been here. - but in this case, you can see that this premises, i this sports facility, _ has really been stripped bare. you're looking at the at the light fixtures and the copper, - all the copper cabling, _ the wiring has all been removed. the rafters, the light fittings, everything is gone. _ it's been stripped. it has been. unfortunately, this is happening throughout our facilities - and you'll find instances .

like this in load—shedding. these facilities aren't protected and they are unfortunately ripe| for the picking for these type | of criminals and these gangs. south africans worry about the stability of their nation. back in 2021, there was widespread street violence and looting after former anc president jacob zuma was jailed for defying the courts in his long—running battle over corruption charges. since then, there has been plenty of talk of a possible uprising of south africa's dispossessed. in hisjohannesburg hq, i met the country's most controversial and radical political leader. i'm telling you, there's going to be a revolution. let the grid collapse and let's see what's going to happen. let the grid collapse! how do you think south africans are going to feel hearing you say that? people who are losing theirjobs now, people who have no income, and you just say to me...

you are misinterpreting me. i'm saying to you, let the grid collapse, as it is going to happen, and see what's going to happen in this country. i'm not wishing it. i'm saying it's going to happen and you will see what's going to happen. do you think that once the grid collapses people are going to exchange roses with government? people are going to rise. and when they rise, there will not be any leader who will be leading them. they will be leaderless, there will be anarchy. there will be looting all over this country because nothing will be working. wiseman makabongwe bambatha invited me to his khayelitsha home to meet his wife, ruby, and their two youngest children. well, how old are you? she's five. five! she's five years. five years? yes. it was evening. the power was out and the anxiety was obvious. do you feel safe when there is no power? no, we don't. we don't. actually, what i do, i make sure that all the kids are inside the house, firstly, and then we lock the door. we lock the gate. so that's how i feel when there is dark outside, so that's how i feel when i know that i am safe.

all, everybody must be inside. have you noticed that there is more crime when the power is off? yes. actually, it is. there's a lot of crime and there's a lot of, like, screaming happening outside. so i will hear screaming, everybody screaming when there's load—shedding outside. actually, even if you can go outside right now, it's very dark. it's very dark. do you fear for the future? because we're here in your family home, you have young children, do you fear for the future? yes, i do. i do. actually, i do a lot because i'm fearful for her when it's late, she's crying, there's no electricity, we are using candles, so i do fearfor her, even for this one. yeah, ido. peer through the darkness

in khayelitsha and you see a state failing to deliver for many of its people. after 29 years in power, the anc risks being seen as the problem, not the solution. hello there. good evening. more blue sky and sunshine for the vast majority of us across the uk again today. always cooler and breezier

towards the south coast. here's hastings in east sussex. the best of the sunshine and the highest temperatures, again, in the west county. down in northern ireland, seeing plenty of blue sky, and some lenticular clouds, as spotted by one of our weather watchers in the north—west of england over the higher ground of the lake district. now, next week, not a lot is set to change. it's dry and it's settled. there will be a lot more sunshine to come in the forecast. again, always best out in the west. there will be some more low cloud moving in from the north sea. plenty of moisture there overnight tonight. the cloud a little more extensive. it's got a head start, of course — it didn't clear for some spots all day, moving into parts of eastern wales and across the south of england, also the central belt,

but it's mild underneath that cloud. temperatures in high single figures, clear skies further west, perhaps a bit of mist forming into tomorrow morning, but it won't take too long to lift and clear. and of course, that low cloud is set to burn its way back towards the coast, maybe a few spots of drizzle, but otherwise dry underneath that cloud. and the cloud could lingerfor some time, perhaps across the wash, perhaps parts of lincolnshire as well, where temperatures will be lower with that onshore breeze. high values out towards the west, south west of scotland, maybe parts of northern ireland, 23 or 24 degrees celsius. don't forget, the sun is strong at this time of year, and the uv levels will be high, will remain high. the grass pollen levels are also high. now, as we head through tuesday, we see the same thing all over again. perhaps that low cloud more extensive, though, through the morning.

again, we are expecting to burn back towards the coast, perhaps producing a few spots of drizzle here and there. some of that cloud lingering again, cooler on the coast, warmer further west, which is where we'll see the best of the day's sunshine yet again — 22 to 24 degrees celsius, maybe for some spots. but things do start to change as the week wears on. now we'll start to see our area of high pressure just gradually migrate its way further eastwards. this is storm 0scar, as named by the spanish met service. it's moving its way northwards. it could produce one or two showers and probably throw some high cloud towards the south—west of england in particula. maybe a few showers across the south. we join a southeasterly wind across south—eastern areas of england, just bringing some much warmer air our way. so across london, for example, through the weekend, we could see highs of 28 degrees.