Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Johannesburg to protest South Africa’s prolonged energy crisis that has seen record power cuts in South Africa, partially due to the collapse of Eskom.
Protesters marched to the headquarters of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party. Many protesters were dressed in blue, the colours of the Democratic Alliance party who organised the rally. There was a strong police presence at the anti-eskom protest due to fears that the protest could turn violent with the police expecting around 5,000 attendees. Smaller protests also took place elsewhere in South Africa to voice discontent.
South Africans have faced regular scheduled blackouts, also known as load-shedding for years as state-owned energy firm, Eskom fails to grapple with demand amid expensive maintenance of its old coal infrastructure. But over the last few months, the energy crisis has worsened and it is common to experience multiple blackouts during the day, for up to 12 hours.
This comes as President Cyril Ramaphosa said this week that it was “understandable” that people were “fed up” with a crisis wreaking “havoc” on the country but warned it could not be fixed overnight. While Ramaphosa has said that they are looking to import electricity from abroad and add producton from renewable energy sources, this could take months.
Image Credit: REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
