Rising prices are deepening the electricity divide in South Africa

Late last year, residents of Yeoville and Bellevue — crumbling inner city areas of Johannesburg — went without power for four weeks after a 63-year-old cable broke. For several months after, power to the electricity supply was rotated between the two areas in four-hour blocks. Then the cuts were reduced to two hours a day as the city’s ageing infrastructure grappled with overloading. And yet, on July 1 electricity costs for some of South Africa’s poorest people, including in Yeoville and Bellevue, went up as much as 60%.