Blackout hits Saftu conference calling for action against load-shedding

The media briefing convened by trade union federation Saftu on Thursday was briefly interrupted by load-shedding. Lights and sound went off as the organisation's top brass was announcing action against rolling blackouts in the country. 

“Look at what we are dealing with, that's load-shedding,” said a visibly irked Zwelinzima Vavi, the general secretary of Saftu. 

The federation says it is forging ahead with its planned national shutdown against the rising cost of living, load-shedding, crime and growing unemployment.

It blames the ANC-led government for SA’s state of affairs and wants not only President Cyril Ramaphosa to resign, but his entire cabinet. 

Addressing journalists on Thursday after its national executive committee (NEC) meeting, the meeting was briefly disturbed as lights went off while Vavi was on the podium. 

The union has set a tentative date for what it termed a “long overdue” strike — August 24 — but said it would not impose the date on its members or other allied formations. 

The national shutdown was necessitated, among other factors, by predictions that the Reserve Bank would increase the repo rate by 1% later this year. This would make many basic goods bought on credit, including houses and cars, unaffordable, according to the union.

On the load-shedding crisis which has been SA’s reality for more than a decade, Vavi said the aim to privatise Eskom had led to a “deliberate engineering of a crisis that undermined the building of internal generation capacity so our grid could contribute to economic growth”. 

The union says part of the shutdown is to demand the immediate resignation of Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter and the Eskom board.

“We demand that Eskom be positioned under a different leadership that will ensure that it drives the introduction of renewables. But not only that, we believe the entire government must resign because its commitment to neoliberalism will continue to run down and hollow out Eskom, while gradually replacing it with independent power producers (IPPs) who will hold us hostage,” said Vavi.    

Responding to a question on the calls for Ramaphosa to resign amid the Phala Phala scandal, Ntlokose said the union wanted the entire cabinet gone.

“We are where we are because of the ANC-led government. The policies that are put in place by the ANC government are not taking us anywhere. We cannot be saying that only Cyril Ramaphosa, who happens to be a representative, he is the shop steward if the ANC, whatever he is doing, he is representing the ANC.” 

The union used the briefing to reiterate its call for a basic income grant (BIG) of R1,500 — that is R150 above the upper bound poverty line. “We believe that the BIG will in turn have positive multiplier effects in the economy by boosting demand and production, while relieving poverty among the unemployed.”

On crime statistics, which revealed that SA recorded more than 65  murders daily in the 2021/22 financial year to March 2022, the union said women are under siege and urged people to mobilise. 

“Don’t moan, mobilise or die. This crisis cannot be addressed, as it always is, by half-baked, ill-conceived measures. It cannot be tackled through expression of anger, by xenophobia or by rushing ahead of other sections of the working class. We need action that will appropriately match the scale of the crisis we face,” said Vavi.

Union president Ruth Ntlokotse said before it took to the streets, it would lobby every class formation to join its  more than 700,000 members.   

“We are calling on every man and woman, on every working-class formation, every progressive NGO in the country that is pro-working class and pro-poor, and we making a single call to all of them: don’t mourn, mobilise or die,” Ntlokose said.

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