Head of South Africa's troubled power company, Eskom, quits

South African state power utility’s chief executive André de Ruyter has resigned, the country’s government-owned public broadcaster SABC and local news outlet News24 reported on Wednesday.

De Ruyter took up the reins at Eskom in January 2020.

The utility, whose ageing fleet of coal-fired power stations is prone to faults, has struggled to meet electricity demand in Africa’s most industrialised nation for more than a decade.

It ramped up scheduled power cuts a week ago to “Stage 6”, repeating the worst outage level on record and putting further strain on households and businesses.

Stage 6 power cuts require up to 6,000 megawatts to be shed from the national grid and mean at least six hours a day without power for most South Africans