DA to request debate of national importance on rising cost of living

2 February 2022

The DA will write to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, to request a debate of national importance regarding the rising cost of living in South Africa.

Eskom’s announcement of Stage 2 loadshedding starting again today, the ludicrous proposed tariff increases for a power utility that cannot provide consistent power, and the fuel and paraffin price hikes are crippling South African households.

The nearly 40 000 people that signed the DA’s petition to stop the electricity tariff hike, shows that South Africans are sick and tired of the constant increases to the cost of living.

But it’s more than mere outrage; for millions of people living in South Africa it is a case of life or death. They cannot afford to light their homes, travel to their jobs (if they’re part of the 50% that have jobs) or buy food for their families. They cannot cut their budgets any finer. They have no more cents to turn twice. They are starving. Yet the ANC government callously continues to bleed them dry and push them into deeper poverty. Death by a thousand cuts.

This while President Cyril Ramaphosa gleefully admitted in a leaked recording that the ANC uses taxpayers’ money as a personal piggy bank and that he will continue to put his party above the well-being of the people of South Africa.

These increases prove that the ANC has no plan to turn the economy around and better the lives of South Africans. More than that, they have no desire whatsoever to even try to come up with a strategy. The only reason every single person in the ANC clings to power is to enrich themselves. They do not care one iota for the country’s well-being.

The DA will use the debate as an opportunity to once again make rational, viable suggestions to turn South Africa’s economic Titanic around. The country can just about avoid the ice berg if the people of South Africa’s needs are put above greed.

Issued by Natasha Mazzone, Chief Whip of the Official Opposition, 2 February 2022