Who should be blamed for SA’s electricity crisis?

By Syanda Ngcobo

 Photo source: www.imageshack.us

It has been a while now that South Africans have been living unhappy lives. People are constantly scared of the evil demon known as “load shedding”.  Who should really take the blame, since both Eskom and the government refuse to do so.  Now the government and Eskom started to point their fingers at the consumers of electricity which does not make any sense to me. The power shortage was known about long time ago. Both sides that were responsible did nothing to prevent it. I think consumers have the right to blame Eskom and the government for the failure to do something. I am just wondering what the minister of Minerals and Energy was doing all along during her term in office. Is she happy now? I think she is. She must be happy because she brought us into this deep mess.

Now, Eskom and the government are ordering people to use the electricity efficiently. But my problem is, what do they mean by efficiently?  People have paid for electricity and need to use it the way they like. And currently Eskom want to increase electricity price by 60 percent.  I think that is ridiculous. How you can do that while people’s demands have not met yet? Eskom expects people to accept this while they spend hours without electricity. I do not want to talk about affordability in terms of who is going to afford and who is not, because I am not COSATU or Zwelinzima Vavi.

Mr. Government and Mr. Eskom you need to address this problem as soon as possible, otherwise South Africa is going down down!