Durban - The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) will on Thursday squeeze the last mileage out of the issue of Eskom’s load shedding that forced Jabu Mabuza out of the state-owned power utility.
The party's deputy president and chief whip Floyd Shivambu has written questions to the country's deputy president David Mabuza asking him to tell the nation who "misled" President Cyril Ramaphosa about Eskom's load shedding.
Shivambu wants Mabuza to publicly expose the culprits and reveal what actions have been taken against them.
The question of misleading Ramaphosa first came to the public arena while Mabuza was mobilizing for the ANC at Diamond Pavillion mall in Kimberley, Northern Cape ahead of the ruling party's January 8 rally.
Mabuza was asked by journalists why Eskom was still implementing load shedding when Ramaphosa had assured the nation that there would be no load shedding until January 13, 2020. Mabuza dropped the bombshell that Ramaphosa was misled and that led him to give an empty assurance to the nation. This assurance was battered when Eskom implemented stage 6 load shedding.
"They’ve misled the president, but right from the day we went there with the president, I insisted on maintenance. Maintenance of these power stations is very important," the deputy president had said.
That shocking admission piled pressure on Jabu Mabuza who was acting both as chairman of the board and chief executive of Eskom. Mabuza left Eskom on January 10.
In his resignation letter, Jabu Mabuza shamefully apologised to Ramaphosa for giving him the wrong information.
The revelations by the deputy president also piled pressure on public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan to be held accountable for allegedly being part of the group that misled Ramaphosa.
Gordhan's long-time nemesis, the EFF even called on him to resign for his role in the saga. However, Gordhan has weathered the storm and he is still in office.
Thursday's Questions and Answers session for Mabuza is expected to bring the focus sharply back on Gordhan and the alleged role he played in giving the misleading information to Ramaphosa who cut short a trip to Egypt in order to deal with the load shedding crisis.