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Political analyst, Ntsikelelo Breakfast says the African National Congress (ANC) government has fallen short in honouring its commitment to ending rolling blackouts. This after ANC chief-of-staff, Febe Potgieter-Gqubule said things at Eskom were stabilizing.
She was speaking at a media briefing in Mpumalanga on Saturday, ahead of the ANC’s January 8th Statement.
ANC NEC media briefing in Mpumalanga ahead of January 8th Statement:
Breakfast says government’s failure to address rolling blackouts will likely cost the party votes at the upcoming general elections.
“The issue of electricity crisis is caused by the ANC lead government. Let’s be honest, due to, in my opinion, the implementation of the neo liberal model of the development because they did not want to invest in Eskom, they wanted to privatise Eskom. The President when he delivered his first State Of the Nation Address, I still remember, he made a commitment that government was going to respond to this challenge on time but government has failed.”
Meanwhile, Political analyst Piet Croukamp says former Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma are largely to blame for the current state of the ANC. Croukamp says President Mbeki is responsible for the problems at Eskom, while President Zuma is responsible for State Capture.
“There was no talk in the ANC about privatising Eskom at the time when the problem started, which started in the late 1990’s already. By 2007 we had a severe problem but Thabo Mbeki ignored good advice to build more power stations or to generate more electricity at the time. It’s always been government policy that in some instances they might have public-private partnerships but that is not necessarily privatisation.”
