With the country plunged into darkness, South Africans are expressing their frustration at the ongoing Stage 6 blackouts and some are now threatening to take their anger out on the streets in February.
This has been exacerbated by the recent approval by the South African National Energy Regulator (Nersa) of an 18.6% increase in the electricity tariff by 2023 and another 12.7% increase by 2024. High levels of Continuous blackouts have had an economic impact and the emotional cost of citizens.
The call for a national lockdown is timed to coincide with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation (SONA) address.
Mercia Motsamai, once a fully stocked shop in Meadowlands, Soweto, has now lost almost everything in the past two years to repeated blackouts. Their shelves are empty with their refrigerators damaged from the power surge. He had to throw out most of his rotten stock. She says that all this led her to fall into a depression.
“Mentally and emotionally it affected me a lot because now I am taking tablets because sometimes you think that even at night you think it is too much for your body and mind. Last week I had to go to the clinic and they told me that my high blood pressure is 190 and they gave me eight tablets in the morning and you have to take those tablets for five days in the morning,” says Motsamai.
Another dealer, Thami Mazibuko Family Butcher and General Dealer, is also a shadow of his former self. He says that no one comes to shop at his store, since they don’t have electricity to cook.
“We cannot follow who is going to buy you if they do not have electricity to cook. You can’t imagine that I have been for the last 28 years, but I have never been through this. I have a generator and gas is costing me a lot. I lose a lot of money here,” says Mazibuko.
Nationwide shutdown
The nationwide lockdown has been endorsed by members of the public, civil society organizations and political parties on various social media platforms, with many planning to march to the Union Buildings or Eskom’s Megawatt Park offices in Johannesburg.
Unions call for a national lockdown against Eskom tariffs and worsening energy crisis:
Some residents say they will definitely join the march.
“I will join the protest because our businesses are suffering, the economy is suffering. Our leaders, our president, ministers and cabinet are living luxurious lives, enjoying the generators from which we cannot afford the solar system. I wish the protest could last five days or more so they can take the message to heart and help Eskom. For the march obviously I will join because my business has been affected, so yes, for me yes, I will join and I think this will be a wake-up call”, explains a resident.
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen says his party is tired of the empty promises made by Ramaphosa and has urged South Africans to join the party’s march to Luthuli House next Wednesday to protest the crisis. electrical.
“Households struggle to put food on the table. Companies are struggling to pay their staff. The stage 6 load shedding is costing South Africa between R4 and R6 billion per day. We do not accept that while the ANC subjects ordinary South Africans to 11 hours of load shedding per day, the residences of the president, his cabinet ministers and his deputy ministers receive no load shedding. The same people who have broken Eskom are exempting themselves from the effects of their own failure. That’s why they don’t have a sense of urgency to clean up their own mess,” says Steenhuisen.
On Sunday, the president canceled his trip to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos to discuss the country’s electricity crisis.
