According to Julius Malema, the EFF will shut down the country on March 20 to protest the lack of electricity and Cyril Ramaphosa’s resignation. He addressed the media after the plenary in Johannesburg on Sunday.
Malema said that the reason for the march is the rising cost of living and poverty, high levels of corruption and lack of service delivery, among others. He also said that the economy will come to a halt and there will be no schooling.
Meanwhile, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has requested a meeting with President Ramaphosa over the energy crisis. Earlier this month, Winde wrote to the president saying the national government needed to show urgency in tackling the energy crisis. He requested for a national state of disaster to be declared to better manage the response to the load shedding.
“The next stage will be calling for an urgent meeting with the president and his team and failing that is the intergovernmental dispute process and then we will take it to the next level. I will once again be writing to say I need that meeting for the exact details so that we can have clarity, so that our businesses, our citizens can plan based on a concrete plan that shows what energy provision is going to be made.”
In the short-term, Ramaphosa, who is also the president of the ANC, says the country aims to reduce load shedding to lower levels. The ANC NEC Lekgotla was taking place at Esselen Park east of Johannesburg when he spoke.
South Africa is currently enduring stage 4 load shedding, but was recently subject to Stage 6 rolling blackouts.