S. Africans protest against monopoly by state-run power utility

Hundreds of protesters on Wednesday gathered outside the headquarters of South Africa's power utility Eskom in Johannesburg to press demand for an end to its monopoly of electricity supply.

Wearing blue T-shirts, a symbol of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), the protesters were holding placards which read "Break Eskom monopoly before it breaks South Africa" and "Power to the people".

DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane, who was with the protesters, urged the government to declare constant rolling blackouts "a national power crisis".

The South African government has downplayed the power shortage, saying the country is far from an energy crisis.

The protest came as Eskom implemented a new round of load shedding from 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, which is likely to continue until 10:00 p.m..

This is due to a shortage of generation capacity as several units are currently on unplanned outages due to technical faults, Eskom said.

"The power system remains constrained and will remain so for the rest of this week," Eskom said.

Eskom provides about 95 percent of the electricity consumed in South Africa.

The DA has repeatedly called for the introduction of independent power suppliers to come on board.

The ruling African National Congress reportedly has decided to abandon the Independent System Market Operator bill, which would have taken the management of the national power grid away from Eskom.

Power cuts has become regular since last November in South Africa, due to the collapse of two of Eskom's power stations. Endi