It’s ‘OFFICIAL’ – we are doomed

Dear Editor

“Far from being the much vaunted ‘project manager’ who was to come in and fix the electricity crisis, Ramakgopa has emerged as nothing more than an ANC PR hack, paid for by the taxpayer, sent to hoodwink South Africans into believing that something was being done to roll back loadshedding. If anything, the situation has become progressively worse since his appointment.”

In public announcements made a day apart, President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister of Electricity, Kgosientso Ramakgopa, have officially declared the ANC government’s failure to fix the crippling electricity crisis and exposed their inability to find solutions as to how to fix it.

On Friday, Ramakgopa led with the doomsday message that stage 6 loadshedding will continue indefinitely while Ramaphosa, speaking at an ANC event on Sunday, essentially told South Africans to brace for a cold winter and accept that the electricity crisis was not unique to South Africa alone.

The callousness with which these messages were delivered underlined how the ANC government has given up finding a solution to the biggest national crisis ever to confront South Africa since the dawn of democracy. What has become clear is that there was never a plan to fix the electricity crisis.

In just three days, Ramakgopa and Ramaphosa have told South Africans that they we are now on our own on loadshedding and there is nothing that the ANC government is planning to do about it.

Far from being the much vaunted “project manager” who was to come in and fix the electricity crisis, Ramakgopa has emerged as nothing more than an ANC PR hack, paid for by the taxpayer, sent to hoodwink South Africans into believing that something was being done to roll back loadshedding. If anything, the situation has become progressively worse since his appointment.

In 2023, the country has already experienced 2 896 hours of load shedding in the first quarter of 2023 and if the trend continues, will eclipse 2022 several times over. Ordinary South Africans will pay a heavy price for this sad state of affairs with hundreds of thousands of jobs projected to get lost and small businesses closing shop.

The ANC almost pulled off its “Ramakgopa con” but they gave it away when they vehemently refused to support a DA motion calling for an ad hoc committee to oversee the new Minister of Electricity. Months after his appointment, Ramaphosa himself is still not sure what Ramakgopa’s job description is.

With the ANC government declaring incapacitation to deal with the ongoing crisis, the DA led Western Cape government and the City of Cape Town have taken active steps to fill the leadership vacuum. Earlier this year, the City of Cape Town went to market to procure 300MW from IPPs and a 500MW dispatchable energy tender to protect against loadshedding.

This was just one of the numerous interventions in process or planned, by the Democratic Alliance in the Western Cape. The ANC has run out of excuses. It’s about time they own their failures and step aside in 2024 to let the Democratic Alliance run the country and fix the mess.

Regards

Samantha Graham-Maré MP
DA Shadow Minister of Electricity