The Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Sunday that they will call an urgent meeting with Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan to solve the Eskom crisis that’s plunged South Africans into the dark again.

Eskom announced Stage 2 load shedding at the start of the weekend. A report from the Sunday Times claimed that the problems are likely to continue for a long time with the coal supply taking a nose dive.

DA spokeswoman Natasha Mazzone said in a statement on the weekend:

It is now time for the ANC government and Minister Gordhan to put politics aside and seriously consider the DA’s plan to ensure the country no longer has to endure the crippling effects of power blackouts. “The ANC government’s legacy of state capture at Eskom has essentially cut our power and the time has come to cut Eskom’s monopoly over our power and ultimately the ANC’s power in next year’s elections. The shortage of coal at several power stations and the resultant effect of power blackouts proves that Eskom’s monopoly on power production and supply needs to be broken up,” she said.

Mazzone said that Gordhan must put South Africa first.

Gordhan must now act in the best interest of South Africans and tackle the electricity crisis head-on. That the power utility is looking to spend R1 billion in the interim is an indictment on Eskom’s leadership. A long-term solution is desperately needed. The DA has a plan to ensure that we turn around Eskom in order to deal- decisively and permanently- with the entity’s problems.

And, just in case you didn’t know the 2019 Elections were around the corner and it’s now time to kick the campaiging into full gear, the statement added:

The Independent System and Market Operator (ISMO) Bill introduced by the DA seeks to achieve exactly this and save citizens money by ensuring that they have more options with regards to purchasing electricity.



Meanwhile, there was no load shedding reported at the Global Citizen festival, not at the time of writing anyway. The live stream was going off without problems, too.