JOHANNESBURG, May 11 (Reuters) – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa denied on Thursday that his government was “sleeping on the job” over crippling power cuts, adding he believed the country needed emergency power and existing interventions would ease pressure on the grid.

Africa’s most industrialised economy is experiencing the worst electricity outages on record, meaning many households and businesses are without power for more than 10 hours a day.

Concerns have grown in recent days about the country’s economic outlook with no clear end in sight for the power crisis, with expectations the outages could get worse in the southern hemisphere winter months.

Spooked investors have dumped the local rand currency ZAR=D3, which struck a new three-year low against the dollar on Thursday.

(Reporting by Nellie Peyton and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Alexander Winning)