President Cyril Ramaphosa continued to back his police minister Bheki Cele amid continued calls for him to be sacked due to the country’s crime statistics.

Ailing state-owned parastatal, Eskom announced it was ramping up load-shedding to stage 6 until further notice. The power utility said the higher stage of the deliberate power cuts was necessary due to severe capacity restraints.

The South African government called for calm amid heightened tensions in many communities about service failings and the continued crippling load shedding.

International relations and co-operation minister Naledi Pandor dismissed criticism of joint military drills with China and Russia saying hosting exercises with “friends” was the “natural course of relations.

The Economic Freedom Front president Julius Malema announced that his party had instructed EFF deputy mayors in eight hung KwaZulu-Natal Councils to resign immediately and that the co-governance agreement between the two parties was over.

President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his State of the Nation (SONA) Address declaring a State of Disaster for the electricity crisis and saying a minister of electricity would be appointed.

Annual consumer inflation cooled to 6.9% in January but food inflation hit its highest levels since 2009.

Tabling his 2023 Budget, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced that the National Treasury will relieve the struggling parastatal Eskom of R254 Million of its debt over the next three years but said that strict conditions would be attached to this. Shortly after his speech, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter left the power utility “with immediate effect” after launching a stunning attack on the government and the ANC.