Cape Town – Amidst the ongoing energy crisis plaguing the citizens of South Africa, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has called for Cyril Ramaphosa’s return to the country to address the crisis.
Reports indicated that the president was expected to head to the United States for the United Nations General Assembly after attending the funeral of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Instead, he was set to return to South Africa right after the funeral to address the national power crisis.
This came after Eskom announced over the weekend that load shedding would be escalated to stage 6.
Reports said that Ramaphosa will be cutting his trip short in order to deal with the electricity crisis.
This would not be the first time Ramaphosa has cut short a foreign trip over the the electricity crisis. In 2019, he ended a visit to Egypt early so he could return home to deal with the same issue.
Upon his return, the president may have to face a barrage of criticism from other political parties.
The DA has released a joint-statement issued by Members of Parliament, Kevin Mileham and Ghaleb Cachalia, in which they alleged that Ramaphosa had ignored warnings from the DA about his Energy Response Plan that had veered off the track due to an ineffective National Electricity Crisis Committee (NECC).
The party said that Ramaphosa was obligated to heed its call.
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“With Eskom announcing Stage 6 load shedding due to a system-wide failure of generation units across its generation fleet, Ramaphosa is now duty bound to heed the DA call and declare a ring-fenced State of Disaster around Eskom. Eskom’s plant performance has continued to deteriorate substantially in the past week, confirming a power plant maintenance plan that is in crisis,” read the statement.
It said that Eskom’s recent 32% tariff increase application to NERSA was out of touch with reality.
“The DA reiterates its call that Eskom should not be rewarded for keeping South Africans in the dark. Consumers must not be forced to bear the financial burden of the ANC government’s failure to address an electricity crisis that has been 15 years in the making. In view of the state’s patent failure to deliver on Eskom’s mandate it is time for the private sector to be engaged with urgency,” stated the party.
Dr Wynand Boshoff of the Freedomfront Plus said in a statement that the power crisis may not be resolved as long as the ANC remained in power.
“The current power crisis, with stage 6 load shedding implemented on Sunday morning and even worse looming on the horizon, will apparently not be resolved as long as the ANC is in power,” said Boshoff.
He also criticised the government’s steadfastness on the affirmative action and a resistance to privatisation policies.
“Even though the country’s economy is being forced to its knees, the government keeps clinging to two policies, without which the current crisis would not even have existed,” said Boshoff.
Boshoff also advised everyone who was able to invest in private power generation in the meantime.
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Compiled by Junaid Benjamin
