Strikers can’t hold SA to ransom

Why is it that there are South Africans who are prepared to burn the literal and figurative house down around them if they do not get their way?

We have seen it again twice this week – and both times it has been around electricity. First the residents of Soweto – less than 40% of whom pay for their electricity supply – burned tyres and set up blockades on major roads because they are angry at getting cut off.

Then, as the country was plunged into even more darkness yesterday as Eskom put into effect stage 4 rolling blackouts, the power utility revealed that its own workers were blockading plants and preventing people and supplies getting in.

ALSO READ: Eskom’s hot mess – Stage four load shedding, illegal strikes, worker intimidation

This has affected electricity production. So, the rest of us must sit without power for six hours a day because Eskom’s workers – some of whom are already sabotaging its plants – are trying to blackmail it into higher pay increases. This is simply anarchy.

When an entire country is held hostage by a small group of people, that is tantamount to terrorism. That is bad enough, but the fact that the government and security services stand around and do nothing rubs salt into the wounds.

This cannot be allowed to continue.