Angry South Africans took to the streets on Monday morning as frustration grows at the worsening energy crisis and no end in sight to load shedding. Fed-up residents and political parties took to social media over the weekend to express their anger over the worsening power outages and the big electricity price hike. On Thursday last week, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) granted Eskom an 18.65% tariff increase in April and a further 12.74% hike next year, the announcement came with an increase in hours of blackouts, from at least 6 to 8 hours a day.
As reported by IOL, Eskom said: “The minimizing of load shedding is the highest priority for Eskom and continuous focus at all levels in the organization is being given…”
#NationalShutdown is currently trending on Twitter as angry South Africans vent frustration at disruptions to business, health, service delivery, food wastage, and more.
“StandUpSA” was another trend that people were rallying behind, created by Twitter user @khustazm, who said an Eskom protest was in the works and volunteers were coming in huge numbers to organize it. A protest was planned for February 2 from Sunninghill Taxi rank to Eskom’s Megawatt Park in Sandton, while plans were also being made to protest in Cape Town.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said the party was also organizing a march to the ANC headquarters at Luthuli House in Joburg on January 25 against the “ANC-engineered crisis”.
EFF leader Julius Malema said, “We are our own liberators; we must remove the ANC from power but even before that, Ramaphosa must fall with immediate effect, and failure to do that, we must push him out of office.”
Meanwhile, Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya tweeted that the president has canceled his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos to attend to the crisis.
“Currently the President is convening a meeting with leaders of political parties represented in parliament, (National Energy Crisis Committee) NECCOM and the Eskom board.”
