By Zukile Majova
Political Editor
With the national general elections just over two months away, the ANC has had to revise its election manifesto to hide its monumental failure to end load shedding.
Initially, the ANC was genuinely convinced that load shedding would be a thing of the past by the time the country voted in the elections on 29 May.
But load shedding is nowhere to be found in the party’s manifesto which has six priorities including reindustrialisation to drive economic growth.
The party’s manifesto — unveiled at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on Saturday — contains no clear plan to end the country’s energy crisis, which now includes a shortage of gas.
In the last quarter of 2023, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa assured the ANC national executive committee that blackouts would end by December 2023.
This is why President Cyril Ramaphosa went on a nationwide tour telling different communities that work was underway to end load shedding.
“We set out a clear plan to end load shedding, which we have been implementing with a single-minded focus through the National Energy Crisis Committee,” Ramaphosa said.
A confident ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula told the nation load shedding would end by Christmas 2023.
It did not. The country was plunged into stage 6 load shedding in the first week of January 2024.
An irritated Mbalula later tried to backtrack under media pressure.
“Do I run Eskom? How do I know load shedding will return today or tomorrow? All I am saying is what the ANC wants, which is for load shedding to end.”
But why was the ANC so confident about ending load shedding?
In October 2023, load shedding was fluctuating between stages 1 and 3 and Eskom was on track to return four generating units at Kusile Power Station which had been out of action since August 2022.
This was to add 3,200 MW back to the grid, the equivalent of three stages of load shedding.
As early as September and October, the units were returning even before schedule, assuring the top ANC officials that load shedding would not be a major factor in the 2024 elections.
“We are now beginning to turn the corner to additional capacity,” Kgosientsho told a media briefing at the time. “I indicated at our last briefing that the Kusile units will be indispensable to resolving this problem. In the short term, it will help us reduce the intensity of load shedding.”
But that was then. At the moment Luthuli House does not want to talk about load shedding.
Pictured above: ANC manifesto launch.
Image source: X
