S.Africa can expect three more years of power outages, against privatisation -minister

South Africa can expect three more years of power cuts, a cabinet minister said on Thursday, as utility Eskom struggles with supply shortages that have hobbled key mining and manufacturing sectors in the worst outages since 2008.
South Africa's only nuclear plant is expected to add more than 900 megawatts of power to the national grid by the end of May after undergoing maintenance, Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown told reporters.
Meanwhile, Brown, who oversees state-owned power utility Eskom, said on Thursday she was not in favour of privatising basic services such as electricity but did not rule out a strategic partner in some instances.
South Africa's Treasury said on Wednesday it is considering either partially privatising Eskom or putting up some of its assets for sale to secure funding for the cash-strapped power, which is struggling with serious power supply shortages.
"I actually don't really believe we should have privatization when it comes to basic services ... (however) there are parts of what we own that could go to a strategic partner, but when it comes to basic services I am not in favour," Lynne Brown told reporters in response to a question on the possible privatisation of Eskom.