‘The lights were on after Ramaphosa took over from Zuma, now they are off’ – Sisulu

Former cabinet minister Lindiwe Sisulu has lamented the current electricity crisis saying when President Cyril Ramaphosa preceded Jacob Zuma, the “lights were on and today under his tenure they are off”.

Sisulu’s comments come after Eskom painted a bleak winter outlook for South Africa with the possibility of the country hitting stage 8 load shedding during the colder months.

Winter load shedding

Speaking during a media briefing, on the state of the system and its operational performance on Thursday, Eskom acting CEO Calib Cassim warned that the utility only has 3 000MW less power this winter than it did last winter.

“If the interventions that we have planned for the winter do not achieve the desired outcomes and your unplanned outages reaches levels of 18 000MW, then the likelihood of stage 8 load shedding during peaks is extremely high,” he said.

Real state capture

Sisulu’s advisor Mphumzi Mdekazi told The Citizen on Saturday that the former minister said what the country is experiencing today is the “real state capture”.

“The only view, which is a public secret, is that when the current president took over from [former] president Zuma, the country’s lights were on; today the lights are off.

“Whoever is behind the electricity crisis is deliberately pitting the ANC against society, it’s a political sabotage so that we can be dislodge from political power come next year general elections. It’s very counter revolutionary, tantamount to self-hatred.

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Nine wasted years

“You would recall that this crisis was once apportioned to the so called ‘state capture’, others termed it ‘nine wasted years’.

“Let’s hypothetically say that was a fact for once, the logical question is, what happened to those who were implicated in that state capture report to date?” Mdekazi said.

Mdekazi said Sisulu warned that the current electricity crisis is putting the country at risk.

“She said the electricity crisis is an economic sabotage, which should be categorised as treason,” he said.

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