Local elections

Photo: Twitter / ANC

Ramaphosa: ‘There’ll be no electricity if you don’t vote ANC’

ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa told community members of Tsabella in Ekurhuleni, that even countries like the US have experienced blackouts

Local elections

Photo: Twitter / ANC

African National Congress (ANC) President Cyril Ramaphosa has told community members in Tsabella in Ekurhuleni, that by not voting for the party in the upcoming local government elections, they essentially risk saying goodbye to electricity supply “for good” because no other political party can do so.

Ramaphosa was again on the campaign trail on Thursday, 28 October 2021. His visit comes as like the rest of the country, the community has been experiencing blackouts.

“I have been told by your mayor [Mzwandile Masina] that you have had no electricity for over four months. He says that the reason for your lack of electricity has been the fact that your transformer used to supply this community with electricity was apparently damaged and Eskom has indicated that it has no capacity to replace it at the moment,” said Ramaphosa.

Eskom has been struggling to keep the lights on since the first week of October and has largely attributed these rolling blackouts to a shortage of generation capacity. The country is currently on stage 3 of load-shedding after the utility downgraded from stage 4 on Thursday evening.

RAMAPHOSA: ‘NOBODY ELSE CAN PROVIDE YOU WITH ELECTRICITY’

In addition, President Cyril Ramaphosa told the community members that load-shedding is nothing new and that even developed countries like the United States (US) has experienced power outages. Ramaphosa also touched on illegal electricity connections and discouraged residents against them as it is a contributing factor to the blackouts.

“I’ve seen your placards saying ‘no electricity, no vote’ – if you say that then who will fix the electricity? That means there will be no electricity for good because the ANC provides electricity. The same ANC you don’t like. Who will you vote for then to provide electricity? There’s nobody else that can provide electricity for you,” he told the crowd in isiZulu.