If Eskom collapse not halted, SA might never recover - warns Maimane

If the collapse of Eskom is not immediately halted and reversed, it could plunge South Africa  into a downward spiral from which it might never recover, DA leader Mmusi Maimane has warned.

 Speaking while on the election campaign trail in the Ngwathe region in the Free State on Saturday, Maimane said the country was facing a critical energy crisis the likes of which it had not seen since the dawn of democracy.

“Beyond the inconvenience of going without electricity for hours at a time, we face serious risks to our water distribution network, our sewage system and our primary healthcare. The continuous interruptions are also causing extensive damage to our electricity distribution system, which wasn’t built to be switched off and on all the time. Simply put, if this load-shedding carries on much longer, or if it escalates to stages 5 and beyond, we could be looking at a complete collapse of both our infrastructure and our currency,” he cautioned.

He said already the effects of load-shedding had been devastating to the economy, with small businesses suffering heavy losses, and some already having to shut their doors.

“For every small business that closes shop, dozens of employees and family members immediately lose their only income. And the effects these power cuts will have on future investment in our economy cannot even be calculated.

“This is a national crisis, and we have very little time to fix it before the damage is too great and our economy collapses entirely. What we need, more than anything else right now, is the truth. We need our government to tell us just how severe this crisis is so that we can prepare ourselves,” Maimane said.

He added that this coming Friday, a National Day of Action would be held where South Africans across the country could show the government exactly who held the power, and that they would not allow the country “to implode at the hands of the ANC”.

“This will not be a party political action, but rather an effort to harness the power of all South Africans to save our country. We did so before when we said no to Jacob Zuma and state capture, and it is now time for us to unite again.”