Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, John Steenhuisen, said on Saturday the party is organising a ‘major protest march’ against South Africa’s electricity crisis.
The country is currently buckling under the impact of stage 6 load shedding, and to add insult to injury, Eskom will be allowed an electricity tariff of 18.65%.
The new revised tariffs and prices will be effective from 1 April.
DA’s energy crisis protest
On Saturday, Steenhuisen confirmed that his party is “organising a major protest march to the ANC headquarters at Luthuli House in Johannesburg on 25 January”.
‘Take the ANC’s power’
He said the protest is “against the ANC-engineered electricity crisis”.
Stage 6 load shedding has taken away your power. It is time to take away the ANC’s power.
Steenhuisen said the South African wouldn’t be able to survive an electricity tariff increase of 18.65%, especially not since the “ongoing stage 6 load-shedding costs SA R4 billion a day.”
‘Reject tariff increase’
He said the tariff increase must be rejected because it will “only worsen the cost of [the] living crisis”.
On Friday, Steenhuisen said: It’s time to hit the streets SA! We can’t sit back and take hyper-inflationary increases!”
He added: “Far too many citizens are barely able to keep their heads above water. This 18% Nersa increase is like a government jackboot pushing more of us under the surface.”
Open letter to Ramaphosa
Steenhuisen also requested to meet with President Cyril Ramaphosa regarding the “deepening electricity crisis”.
In an open letter addressed to the president, Steenhuisen wrote: “I would like to understand the reason for the failure, to date, to implement meaningful reforms to the energy sector”.
Steenhuisen said South Africa does not have the “built-in resilience” to survive stage 6 load shedding.
Furthermore, he wants to understand why the ANC “has been so lethargic and conservative in its response to this catastrophe”.
Load shedding solutions
Steenhuisen said there are five important interventions required to stave off load shedding (as previously presented to the president).
These measures are as follows:
- Unbundle Eskom into separate generation, transmission and distribution entities and open the market to private power producers.
- Appoint skilled engineers and stop political interference.
- Declare the ring-fenced State of Disaster to exempt Eskom from all obstacles to efficient spending and rapid decision-making.
- Ramp up security at all key Eskom sites and deal harshly with saboteurs.
- Do everything possible to enable private generation to come online soonest (such as lifting the 100MW cap).
Steenhuisen concluded: “South Africans are desperate for a sign that there could be an end to this crisis. Our own voters ask us daily what is being done and when they can expect some form of relief.
“I need to know what to tell them, and so I respectfully ask that you meet with me for a thorough discussion of the issue”.
