The Phone Call That Helped End Load-Shedding
A phone call from President Cyril Ramaphosa to Discovery CEO Adrian Gore set off a chain of events that gave private business a far larger role in ending load-shedding. Gore tells the story in his book, The Four Principles, as a real-world example of what he calls “Disciplined Optimism.”
What Disciplined Optimism means
Gore says our natural instinct is to look for negative signals and trust pessimism, which doesn’t make anyone more productive or lead to better outcomes. His alternative is to look for positive signals inside a broadly negative environment, because that’s where opportunities and the chance to make an impact are found.
He says this principle was central to founding Discovery in 1992, amid significant local and global turmoil. The positive signal then was that health insurance and risk cover were about to be revolutionised. Turmoil distracts competitors and depresses asset prices, which makes it relatively easier to start a business or make an impact. Gore applies the same thinking to Discovery’s work on social problems, from fixing potholes in Johannesburg to tackling load-shedding.
The crisis
South Africa’s grid is complex and among the largest in the world. In 2025, the country produced more electricity than Israel, New Zealand, Ireland and Portugal combined. Systems like that don’t respond to quick fixes, yet this one deteriorated rapidly, with widespread load-shedding from 2018.
The crisis peaked in 2022 and 2023, with load-shedding held between stages 4 and 6, costing the economy about R27 billion in output every month. Gore described the mood as dispiriting and depressing. There was a real fear that the grid would shut down completely and that anarchy would follow, and a widespread belief that the problem was too big to fix. Discovery’s risk committees even prompted management to prepare for total grid collapse.
The op-ed and the call
Some changes were already under way, including lifting the licensing cap for private generation and setting up an independent team to improve Eskom’s plant performance. At that point Gore wrote an opinion piece in News24 urging people to focus on solutions rather than succumb to negativity. It ended with a plea: business is ready and wants to work with government urgently.
After it was published, Ramaphosa phoned Gore and asked him to rally the business community more purposefully. That meant scaling up the help already being given to Eskom.
Gore realised he had created a risk of being “hoisted by his own petard,” because collaboration was hard. A handful of private-sector initiatives had gained no momentum, and there was significant distrust between the state and business. Government didn’t want business to look like a saviour, and business knew the sector needed more liberalisation before it could really participate.
Building the partnership
Business chose to work through Business for South Africa (B4SA), the platform created during Covid-19. Gore and Ramaphosa agreed to formalise a Government-Business Partnership focused on energy, railways and ports, and crime and corruption.
Gore’s first step was a positive pledge that business leaders, many of them in despair, could get behind. It was published on 27 July 2023, focused on pursuing joint interests with hope, agency and positivity, and was signed by 155 CEOs. Gore acknowledges some may dismiss this as symbolism, but he considers it among the most important things the business community has ever done.
What changed
- Private generation: Businesses invested heavily in their own generation projects.
- Engineers: Business deployed 350 top engineers to help Eskom at no cost to the utility.
- Leadership: Eskom got a new CEO, Dan Marokane, and six power plant management teams were completely replaced.
The results
Load-shedding fell 76% by the end of 2024 and 98% by the end of 2025. Load-shedding is now a thing of the past in South Africa.
The bottom line
The turnaround took policy reform, new leadership at Eskom and heavy private investment, not one phone call. But Gore’s account shows how a public call to action, a formal partnership and practical help on the ground can break a deadlock between business and government. He sees it as a template for future work on rail, ports and crime.
Source: Adrian Gore, The Four Principles, as reported by Daily Investor (25 October 2026).
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