Fikile Mbalula’s power claims hijacked by load shedding

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula’s claims of government success in delivering electricity to South Africans have been drowned out by the “reality check” of load shedding and a power crisis.

Despite a few hour reprieves over the weekend, SA is still battling stage 2 rolling blackouts, having come from stage 6 just a few weeks ago.

Mbalula was reminded of this when he took to social media on Friday evening to recount the ANC-led government’s achievements in providing electricity.

ALSO READ: Mbalula: If load shedding goes beyond December, we must get answers

“The percentage of households with access to electricity increased from 58% in 1996, to 94,7% in 2022. This means that 94% of the country now has access to electricity,” he claimed.

While some applauded the achievement, others pointed out that load shedding had also been introduced during the ruling party’s time in power.

“94% of the country now has access to load shedding 100% of the time,” said one user.

Another added: “True, But you forgot to maintain the power stations. You forgot to build new ones that don’t break now and then. You forgot to upgrade the transmission grid. Oh, and you forgot to take care of illegal connections”.

No load shedding in 2024

Mbalula said last month he was confident the country would go into the new year with no load shedding.

“Load shedding is our Achilles’ heel. We have always said that by December we want load shedding gone. That’s one thing we have said. We also said the action plan we have implemented must guarantee this country to get us out of load shedding.

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“Not for the elections, but to fix our economy battered by this load shedding… companies, job losses and all that.

“We’re still there, if it is ended before the end of December we will be elated. If load shedding goes beyond December, there should be a reasonable explanation as to what is holding us back from getting out of this crisis of electricity supply in our country,” he told eNCA.

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