South Africa saving power, but below target

JOHANNESBURG, May 12 (Reuters) - South Africa managed to achieve power savings of 7 percent last month but remains below the 10 percent target aimed at alleviating the country's power crisis, the president's office said on Monday.

State-owned power utility Eskom [ESCJ.UL] said at the start of May that it had suspended rolling power blackouts, known as load-shedding, because of reduced demand as consumers saved electricity.

The presidency said in a statement after a meeting of a joint energy working group which included President Thabo Mbeki that the country was nearing the 10 percent target.

"The meeting urged the public to accelerate electricity savings in order to avert resumption in load-shedding as the current savings, though welcome, are below the 10 percent target.

Eskom has been struggling to contain South Africa's power crisis, the result of years of underspending on electricity generation capacity, leading to mines shutting down for five days in January and millions of homes left without power.

Since then mines have been operating at 95 percent of normal power.

Eskom has applied for a 53 percent tariff increase which has been rejected by South Africa's ruling ANC and its communist and labour union allies. (Reporting by Phakamisa Ndzamela; Editing by Christian Wiessner)