Malfunctioning utilities add to pressures

Pressures on utilities and other state-owned enterprises will be a greater feature in the 2020s than in earlier debt crises. Reforms to the continent’s largest energy enterprises, Eskom and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, are integral to their macroeconomies emerging stronger. Unravelling the problems of malfunctioning parastatals in economies from Ghana to Madagascar already play a central role in governments’ reform commitments. Madagascan utility Jiro sy Rany Malagasy (Jirama) has attracted considerable funds to support its reform.