And this is coming from someone born in another colonial country called Canada. Canada treated (and still treats) its Indigenous peoples HORRIBLY. The country's policies over several centuries resulted in the subjugation, mistreatment, abuse, and in some cases even complete eradication of Indigenous people and communities.

The difference is that Indigenous peoples in Canada make up less than 5% of the population versus over 80% in South Africa. Imagine being so stupid that you would mistreat, subjugate, and underinvest in people and communities that make up over 80% of your country's population. And you wonder why South Africa is in such poor shape with high crime, high unemployment, bad infrastructure, etc.

It's not just the electricity grid - it's healthcare and everything else. The hospital infrastructure was only built for the tiny white minority, but now everyone must use it. You can't build a healthy country on infrastructure that was made for a small few. This can't be solved quickly.

I'm well aware of that, but you can't reverse decades of neglect and underinvestment overnight. It's a structural problem that will always hold South Africa back.

Are you surprised? The blame goes back to the Apartheid regime who only built proper infrastructure for White communities, which represent only a small proportion of South Africans. Now that a greater proportion of the population has access to basic services and resources (rightfully so), there's not enough to go around.

The racist Apartheid regime should have thought about the consequences of underinvestment outside of White communities years ago. They thought that Apartheid would last forever I suppose.

Edit: It's amazing how may people are ignorant of the long-lasting impacts of apartheid on South Africa's ability to care for its citizens today. I'm not excusing mismanagement and corruption, but white South Africans like to blame everyone but themselves for the country's problems.

The backbone of South Africa's infrastructure (e.g. healthcare, energy, etc.) was built for only a tiny minority of the population. It is therefore incapable of supporting the entirety of the country's population without substantial investment and restructuring, which is difficult to do in a handful of decades.

Canada has fewer people than the state of California. Also, you're skipping over the guns part. The US is the biggest gun factory in the world.

No, the US is the largest exporter of guns and arms in the world. This fuels violence, especially in neighbouring countries like Canada as well as all of the Latin American countries. The gangs are well armed because of American guns and profit from drug sales.