Load shedding ‘same as job shedding’

Cape Town. 150211. Helen Zille leads the way.The DA took to the streets and marched to parliament today. Pic COURTNEY AFRICA

Cape Town. 150211. Helen Zille leads the way.The DA took to the streets and marched to parliament today. Pic COURTNEY AFRICA

Published Feb 12, 2015

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Cape Town - During a Power to the People rally outside Parliament on Wednesday, DA leaders demanded President Jacob Zuma address issues of real concern to South Africans during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday night.

Speaking to hundreds of gathered supporters, Premier Helen Zille said when Nelson Mandela was released from prison 25 years ago, South Africans believed the race against apartheid had been won.

“Today we are ruled by a party that has taken us back to darkness and corruption,” she said. “The DA is in a race against time to prevent the ANC turning South Africa into a criminal state.”

The electricity crisis was addressed by MP Mmusi Maimane, who said Eskom’s mismanagement was taking the country to the brink of economic shutdown.

“Across South Africa, lights are going off in our homes and businesses, disrupting our lives and costing the economy jobs.

“The ANC has made a handsome profit from this crisis, benefiting from a R38.5 billion boiler contract that was central to the delays in building new power stations. This is not an inconvenience, this is an ANC-made crisis,” he said.

He described load shedding as job shedding, which held the country’s economy to ransom.

“Since 2008, our economy has lost R300 billion and one million jobs due to load shedding. Electricity is the fuel that powers our economy and we need to be able to guarantee a stable supply as a matter of urgency. Unemployment will continue to grow unless these key reforms are introduced now,” he said.

He added that energy powerhouse Eskom should no longer be responsible for 95 percent of the electricity generation.

A platform for independent power producers to supply electricity to the grid in significant numbers and an expansion to the country’s renewable energy programme were some of the ways Maimane said the energy crisis should be approached.

He said the DA also rejected President Zuma’s R1 trillion Russian nuclear deal, clouded as it is by secrecy and potential for corruption, and called on him to announce that he would abandon it.

There is no plan to budget for this mega arms deal expenditure, which means that future generations of South Africans will pay for this deal in electricity price hikes if it is not stopped now.

Maimane said that at a time when Eskom’s mismanagement was taking the country to the brink of economic shutdown, the actions of the ANC and the EFF were an insult to ordinary South Africans.

“We don’t want to watch this family feud between father and son.

“South Africans do not want to see constant bickering and fights among politicians, they want MPs to act with dignity and address the real problems confronting our country.

“The electricity crisis must be addressed at Sona. We must make Sona about the issues of real concern to South Africans,” he said.

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Cape Times

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