Load-shedding is an emotional pressure cooker: UJ’s happiness index

“[President] Cyril Ramaphosa went to the queen’s funeral and now [transport minister Fikile] Mbalula went to Qatar and we are sitting with no electricity and communities are mourning the Pongola tragedy.”

This is a comment captured on the University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) happiness index after the announcement of stage 6 load-shedding.

“The happiness of South Africans dropped below the average of 6.85 (for 2022) to 6.44 on September 18 2022,” said Prof Talita Greyling, associate professor at the School of Economics and founder of the index. 

“The negative emotions, as seen from the tweets, reflect disappointment, anger and distrust of government officials, and fear of further increases in unemployment and poverty,” said Greyling.

The report records comments made by South Africans, including:

• “Eskom wants to see us suffering. Might as well have no electricity forever so we can finally adjust to living in a country with no power. We’ll accept reality and not have this consistent tinkling of hope that things will get better. We’ll figure out a way to survive.”
• “Eskom, the sick man of SA. Diagnosis: incurable blackout disease. Prognosis: imminent death of the power station.”
• “Corruption, mismanagement, state capture and bad governance have serious consequences.”
• “Stage 6 load-shedding will hit harder job creation prospects and hurt the economy further.”
• “The worst thing about reading the power updates is the feeling of absolute hopelessness.”
• “It is going to be a tough week. Many businesses will collapse, many businesses will lose clients and lose profits.”

The energy crisis has sparked debate around the competence of the Eskom board and calls for its executives to be removed. The EFF was among those making the demands, saying the party had warned about the management of the state-owned power utility.

Ramaphosa, who was in the UK attending Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, decided to skip a planned address to the UN General Assembly and head home instead after holding a virtual briefing with cabinet ministers and officials. It is the second time he’s had to curtail an overseas visit to respond to the energy crisis. He cut short a visit to Egypt in late 2019 five months after he was elected president.

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