API timeout incidents in this environment are frequently related to:
• Database query performance degradation causing slow responses that cascade into gateway timeouts.
• Memory leaks in long-running service instances that gradually increase response times over hours.
• Third-party payment provider outages (Momo, Sanlam) causing timeout cascades in the middleware layer.
• Misconfigured auto-scaling policies that fail to spin up new instances fast enough during traffic spikes.
• Connection pool exhaustion when database connections are not properly released after use.