Zuma blames apartheid for country's power problems

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President Jacob Zuma says South Africa's energy problems are a product of apartheid and government is not to blame for the current blackouts.

He says the problem is that the energy was structured racially to serve a particular race, and not the majority.

Zuma told delegates at the Young Communist League's congress in Cape Town that the ANC had inherited the power utility from the previous regime, which had only provided electricity to the white minority.

He said twenty years into democracy, 11 million households had access to electricity, double the number in 1994.

Zuma said government was taking action to address the energy situation, adding that the development of the Medupi and Kusile power stations was being accelerated in order to bring them on to the national grid.