Africa-Press – South-Africa. Several political party leaders with seats in Parliament did not attend President Cyril Ramaphosa’s urgent meeting to discuss the country’s dire electricity crisis because they were experiencing load shedding at the time.
Ramaphosa convened the Sunday evening meeting with leaders of political parties, the National Energy Crisis Committee and the Eskom board after his spokesperson wrote on Twitter that the president would no longer be traveling to World Economic Forum in Davos due to the ongoing load shedding crisis.
Ramaphosa’s parliamentary counsellor, Gerhardus Koornhof, sent a message to a WhatsApp group with political party leaders, alerting them of the meeting starting at 19:00.
“The meeting will be on a virtual platform, and the link will be shared as soon as possible. This arrangement will be confirmed in due course. Apology for the late notification. Please indicate your availability,” he wrote in the text which News24 has seen.
DA leader John Steenhuisen, who had written to Ramaphosa’s office last week asking to meet with him concerning the energy crisis after Eskom announced stage 6 load shedding, declined the invite owing to load shedding.
Steenhuisen wrote in the WhatsApp thread:
African Christian Democratic Party leader Kenneth Meshoe, and African Transformation Movement leader Vuyo Zungula also declined the invitation because of load shedding.
Zungula said although he had load shedding when the meeting happened, he also wanted to refrain from participating in a meaningless exercise.
“[T]he president basically undermines opposition parties and comes and says whatever he wants to say under the guise of consulting.
“The meeting was just going to be a PR exercise to make it seem like he consulted opposition political parties,” said Zungula.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa declined the invite saying he was wrapping up joining the application to take Eskom and the state to court over load shedding.
He responded: “[I] regret I’ll be busy with my lawyers finalising papers to be served to Eskom and government on why they are messing up the lives of South Africans by failing to address the Eskom challenges.”
FF Plus leader Pieter Groenewald said the meeting was a waste of time.
“They [the ANC] are very good at identifying all the problems and, yes, they have plans but the problem was caused by the ANC so the only solution to the Eskom crisis is removing the ANC from power,” he said.
The EFF had long indicated that it would no longer attend Ramaphosa’s consultation meetings with opposition parties as he never engaged but only informed them on decisions that had already been taken.
Despite the red berets’ prior reservations, both the EFF leader Julius Malema and his deputy Floyd Shivambu had attended the meeting according to the presidency.
Presidency Spokesperson Vincent Magwenya also confirmed to News24 that Meshoe had eventually attended the meeting.
Meanwhile, the DA said it planned to march to Luthuli House next week over the energy crisis, while the ANC Youth League said it would march to Eskom and the National Energy Regulator of SA over electricity challenges.
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