Cape Town – Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema this week took a swipe at President Cyril Ramaphosa and called for his immediate removal as the leader of South Africa.
Malema criticised Ramaphosa and the ruling ANC for the poor state of the nation.
Taking to social media, he called on South Africans to protest and “remove the ANC from power”.
The picket lines are calling our names. We can’t allow them to turn us into a nation of cowards; everything has collapsed under Ramaphosa, and we look like a helpless nation.
— Julius Sello Malema (@Julius_S_Malema) January 13, 2023
Where are the radical youth of our county? How do you allow schools to open without matric results? What will happen to those who must repeat? They are being set up once again for failure. Let’s all rise to defend our country; let’s reclaim it from the dogs. Now or Never…
— Julius Sello Malema (@Julius_S_Malema) January 13, 2023
I don’t even want to talk about loadshedding because when we marched under heavy rain, the clever blacks called us all types of names and today vonyo vyonyo EFF. Nevertheless, we will continue to fight for you.
— Julius Sello Malema (@Julius_S_Malema) January 13, 2023
Malema’s remarks came, as the Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen said his party was organising a “major march” to protest against load shedding and tariff increases.
I can announce that the DA is organising a major protest march to the ANC headquarters at Luthuli House in Johannesburg on 25 January against the ANC-engineered electricity crisis. Stage 6 load shedding has taken away your power. It is time to take away the ANC’s.
— John Steenhuisen MP (@jsteenhuisen) January 14, 2023
Earlier in the week, Steenhuisen said he had written to Ramaphosa over the dire state of power in the country, saying “for as long as the ANC is in power, you will have less and less power”.
“I have written to President Ramaphosa to request an urgent meeting about Eskom and the growing power crisis, which now has South Africa on stage 6 until further notice,” Steenhuisen said in a statement.
“I want to hear from him first hand why his government refuses to implement the very obvious solutions to this crisis. These solutions have not changed. Both the DA and many energy experts have been proposing them for years,” he said.
Steenhuisen said that despite the solutions that the DA and “many energy experts” have been proposing, Ramaphosa has not announced progress on any of them.
South Africans also took to social media to express their anger after Eskom announced that it will implement stage 6 load shedding continuously until further notice.
Amidst higher stages of load shedding, South Africans were also informed during the week that they would have to cough up more money for electricity after the National Energy Regulator (NERSA) gave Eskom the green light to increase tariffs by 18.6% for the 2023/2024 year.
The hike takes effect in April.
Eskom itself defended as a “tough decision” the steep tariff increase.
Eskom, which had applied for a 32% increase, said it appreciated the regulator’s “tough decision”, adding that it “will positively contribute from a financial and sustainability point of view”.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
