Cape Town – South Africa’s energy crisis is expected to dominate President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address (SONA) on Thursday night.
His speech to the National Assembly will be scrutinised for how he plans to tackle power cuts that since mid-2022 have lasted for up to 12 hours each day.
The record outages have piled misery on a population of 60 million already battling high unemployment, poverty, rampant crime and rising cost of living.
Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe, recently indicated that the power crisis is costing the country R1 billion a day, eNCA reported.
South Africans have called on Ramaphosa to be “bold” and “stick to what he says” when he addresses the nation on Thursday.
According to EWN, the citizens wanted a clear strategy from the president on the rolling outages.
ALSO READ | South Africa awaits glimmer of light in Cyril Ramaphosa’s annual speech
“A solution for all this load shedding. We just need an answer for Eskom,” the report quoted one Gauteng woman as saying.
Meanwhile, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) said it won’t allow the opposition to divert its attention from Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address.
This came as opposition parties, including the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the National Freedom Party (NFP) indicated their intention to disrupt the president’s address.
“I do not think that we are going to be muscled out, but we are going to make sure that we disrupt the president. He must not have it easy on Thursday … he must be disrupted. We are therefore calling on all other MPs (members of Parliament), including those from the ANC to do the same thing.
“If they are there representing the people of this country, they must stand with the people of this country. The people of this country are fed up with the president right now. We are hoping that within the ANC, we will find some comrades that honestly represent the people from their constituencies and be part of us when we try and disrupt the president.
“… All I can assure you is that the president is not going to have it easy on Thursday. We are going to make sure that each and every moment that avails itself, he must be disrupted,” NFP secretary general, Canaan Mdletshe during an interview on Newzroom Africa.
EFF’s Julius Malema also indicated recently that his party would not be addressed by Ramaphosa and promised that the president would see “what they were made of” on the day of the SONA.
“Ka di 9 February, we are going to show him what we are made of there in parliament, we will never be addressed by a constitutional delinquent, we will be there and we are going to take him head on and that is our relationship with him from now onwards,” The South African quoted Malema as saying.
But the ANC parliamentary caucus maintained that it would not be distracted by what it called “intolerant, undemocratic political upstarts, populists and demagogues” who disrespected and undermined the rules and decorum of Parliament, EWN reported.
Follow African Insider on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram
Picture: Getty Images
Compiled by Betha Madhomu
