The Democratic Alliance (DA) has instructed its lawyers to approach the High Court and apply for an urgent interdict to halt National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) approved energy tariff hikes.
DA leader John Steenhuisen announced this on Tuesday afternoon.
This comes after Nersa announced a decision to grant Eskom tariff increases of 18.65% for the 2023/2024 financial year and 12.74% for the 2024/25 financial year.
Steenhuisen said the DA not only rejected the increase but the government’s “poor or rather lack of response to the biggest crisis faced in the history of democracy”.
“South Africans, who have had to spend a third of 2022 in darkness and are burdened with indefinite stage 6 load shedding, are now expected to pay for the looting and mismanagement of Eskom through exorbitant tariff increases,” he said.
Steenhuisen said it had become clear that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his ANC government had failed to act in the interests of the citizens of this country, including protecting them from blackouts and unaffordable electricity tariffs, unless compelled by a court of law to do so.
He said only the DA had a plan to end load shedding but we must first vote the ANC out in 2024.
“The energy crisis is now the single biggest threat to SA’s wellbeing, doing profound economic and social harm. It is now costing South Africa R4 billion to R6bn a day, pushing more and more people into poverty, unemployment and crime and driving away investment.
Steenhuisen said the worst of load shedding was yet to come as the country had been plunged into stage 6 load shedding for the better part of last year and this year.
He said soon enough stage 8 load shedding would become as normal as the current levels of rolling power cuts.
Source: News24, IOL, Times Live, image from Twitter: @CapricornFMNews