As the country's ability to provide basic utilities falters, sufficiently wealthy households go partially or completely off grid, depriving revenue for the utilities and further exacerbating the problem.
in the 3rd world - north of Limpopo - and everywhere else - you discover soon that where you born is like being 60 points down with a 2 min warning and you're in your own end zone.
where you are born matters more than your own talent etc by a factor of 10
Not OP but it's because there are rolling blackouts.
> What is considered sufficiently wealthy
Ability to afford your own solar. A lot of South Africans can't, and with prices increasing 100x over the past 20 years, it makes it difficult to get out of that poverty.
What you might consider "middle class", suburban households, and up. These "upgrades" are something that you can roll into your mortgage.
> Why are they going off grid?
Electricity and water availability issues.
For example, I live in an area where water is unavailable between days and weeks, every few weeks. The systemic issue in my municipality is that they have not kept up with the maintenance of water pipes, which means a significant portion of water pumped from the national provider is lost via leaks. Thus when some pumps and reservoirs go offline due to power disruptions, the loss of flow can lead to no water in higher lying areas that takes time to restore.
There are private solutions to this - the most affordable option is to install a big water tank on your property that in affect acts as a water battery. A more expensive solution is to install a borehole on your property, and to draw water from the water table (this might make sense for a complex, or a rich household).