ActionSA to oppose Eskom’s attempt to evade responsibility for protecting the most vulnerable from rolling blackouts

13 June 2024

ActionSA denounces and will oppose Eskom’s erroneous petition to the SCA for leave to appeal, which seeks to preserve the status quo where the most vulnerable continue to suffer the consequences of rolling blackouts.

We believe that this petition is further evidence of the reality that both Eskom and Government’s intention is simply to delay and avoid accountability for the crisis born out of their own mismanagement. Without question, the primary objective is less about addressing the severe impact of loadshedding, but rather to evade responsibility and prolong the suffering of the most vulnerable members of society.

In a landmark judgment handed down by the Full Bench of the North Gauteng High Court on December 1, 2023, the court ruled in favour of ActionSA’s ‘humanitarian relief’ request that hospitals, schools, and police stations be exempted from experiencing rolling blackouts.

Informed by the need to protect the most vulnerable members of society, ActionSA sought to ensure that these critical institutions were protected from the devastating impact of rolling blackouts, coined euphemistically as ‘loadshedding’.

But as expected, now that the elections have passed, Eskom, in their application, advances several arguments which dispel any notion that there ever existed a concrete plan to not only abide by the North Gauteng High Court judgment but also to end loadshedding.

Firstly, to allege that Eskom has a constitutional obligation to deprive schools, hospitals, and police stations of electricity for the “greater good” is exceptionally arrogant and indicative that neither the government nor Eskom recognises the severe impact of loadshedding on these vulnerable sectors. Frankly, in our view, they appear not to care.

It is also apparent that the intention remains to pass the buck in an endless cycle of blame rather than fulfilling Eskom's and the Government's collective mandate. The notion advanced in their petition, which seeks to imply ambiguity around Eskom’s role in complying with the North Gauteng High Court’s judgment, is simply disingenuous.

ActionSA believes that despite the Minister’s promises that loadshedding was a thing of the past before the elections, South Africans have yet again been duped. It is clear from the petition to the SCA for leave to appeal that Eskom and the Government only delayed loadshedding to bamboozle voters.

Their callous submissions in the petition are an insult to South Africans intelligence. It is clear, and always was to ActionSA, that this was simply a ruse and that the petition to the SCA was delayed until after the elections as a pernicious and duplicitous ploy to placate the electorate that the ANC intended to end loadshedding when it in fact had no such plan.

In light of the egregious efforts by Eskom and the Government to evade responsibility for a crisis of their own making, ActionSA will instruct its legal team to vigorously oppose this application, which we believe is just another waste of taxpayer money.

Issued by Athol Trollip, Parliamentary Caucus Leader, ActionSA, 13 June 2024