No promise can fix what the ANC has broken

17 January 2023

Note to editors: Please find attached soundbite by Dr Dion George MP.

The ANC government, for over a decade and a half, has consistently failed in its fundamental responsibility to deliver electricity.

The promises by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana at the World Economic Forum in Davos regarding the resolution of loadshedding within the next 12-18 months can only be understood in the context of his desperation to secure another billion dollar loan from the World Bank to prop up the Treasury, that has nowhere else to turn as the country runs out of money.

The Minister’s words are a mere reiteration of the broken promises made by the President and previous Ministers, and serve as a gross insult to the millions of South Africans who have been affected by this crisis and deserve honest answers.

For years, South Africans have been subjected to the daily struggles of blackouts, with businesses and households bearing the brunt of this crisis. The economic cost of this government failure has been enormous, with hundreds of billions of rands lost in productivity and revenue.

Yet, the ANC government has done little to address the root causes of this crisis and instead continues to rely on empty promises and bailouts from already overburdened taxpayers.

The fact that ministers live in a bubble, untouched by daily blackouts, with generators paid for by taxpayers, is a telling sign of their disconnection from the reality faced by ordinary South Africans. They have no comprehension of the detrimental effects of their incompetence, corruption, and mismanagement of state operations on the citizens they are supposed to serve.

The DA has been at the forefront of efforts to find a sustainable solution to the energy crisis. The only solution is to implement the real and structural energy sector reforms proposed by the DA, including unbundling the utility into separate generation, transmission, and distribution entities, and encouraging independent power producers to enter the market to increase competition.

The people of South Africa deserve better than empty promises and false hope. We will not stand idly by while the ANC government continues to fail its citizens.

The DA will march to Luthuli House on January 25th, 2023 to demand an end to the government-inflicted blackouts and real solutions to the energy crisis.

We call on all South Africans to join us in this march to demand accountability from their government.

Issued by Dion George, DA Shadow Minister of Finance, 17 January 2023