DA plans march, others call for national shutdown over energy crisis

South Africa - Cape Town - 19 April 2022 - Mohamed Subhaan from Subhaan Cellular in Sea Point sits in the dark in his phone repair shop during load shedding. South Africans should brace themselves for further blackouts as power utility Eskom announces it will be implementing Stage 4 load shedding today. In an alert, Eskom said this follows the tripping of its generation units at Majuba Unit 5 and Tutuka Unit 4. Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency (ANA)

South Africa - Cape Town - 19 April 2022 - Mohamed Subhaan from Subhaan Cellular in Sea Point sits in the dark in his phone repair shop during load shedding. South Africans should brace themselves for further blackouts as power utility Eskom announces it will be implementing Stage 4 load shedding today. In an alert, Eskom said this follows the tripping of its generation units at Majuba Unit 5 and Tutuka Unit 4. Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency (ANA)

Published Jan 16, 2023

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Johannesburg - The country’s electricity problem continues to rile South Africans the wrong way with ordinary South Africans calling for a national shutdown to Union Buildings while the country’s main opposition party, the DA has confirmed its own march to Luthuli House next week.

The DA has confirmed its plan to march to Luthuli House over the Eskom crisis. This comes after South Africans have been seething and demanding answers from the ANC over the Eskom electricity crisis, which has seen the country plunge into stage six load shedding.

On Friday, DA leader John Steenhuisen confirmed the party’s intention to march to Luthuli House on January 25.

“The DA can announce that we are organising a major protest march to the ANC headquarters at Luthuli House in Joburg on January 25 against the ANC-engineered electricity crisis. We invite all South Africans to join us to voice their anger at the ANC’s destruction of our country’s energy infrastructure and economy and to demand urgent solutions to this escalating crisis,” Steenhuisen said in a statement.

He said the march was aimed at targeting the ruling party, whose role in the collapse of Eskom has ensured that the country’s energy problem persists in spite of many promises to fix the mess.

“The DA’s protest will specifically target Luthuli House because this is the scene of the crime that the ANC continues to perpetrate against the people of South Africa through permanent stage 6 load shedding and the latest 18.65% electricity tariff increase. It is at Luthuli House where, over the past three decades, the decisions were made to ‘deploy’ the corrupt and incompetent cadres who plundered and destroyed Eskom. It is at Luthuli House that corrupt tenders were handed out, including for the ill-fated construction of the Medupi and Kusile power stations that have cost our country so dearly.”

Steenhuisen said cadre deployment was at the centre of the country’s electricity crisis, which has worsened over the past five years since Ramaphosa’s reign as ANC and state president.

“Through its corrupt system of cadre deployment, the ANC centralised all power in Luthuli House. That is why the DA is taking our fight against load shedding directly to the source of this crisis: the ANC.

“There is only one organisation that is responsible for the misery and hardship that the electricity crisis is causing all South Africans. The guilty party is the ANC, and it is time to hold this criminal organisation accountable.”

Meanwhile, South Africans on social media are planning their own march to the Union Buildings over the same issue.

The Star

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