Electricity shortages hobble South Africa growth

Power outages are the biggest brake on South Africa's economic growth, the country's Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said Monday, as factories, homes and offices across the country continue to suffer from long electricity cuts.

South Africa is forecast to grow at two percent this year, far below the rate needed to ease high unemployment and growing frustration among many young blacks more than two decades after the end of apartheid.

"The most pressing risk facing us at the moment is the energy generation," Nene told foreign correspondents at a briefing in Johannesburg.