According to Gwede Mantashe, the government must take action because the nation cannot continue to suffer from the load shedding issue. By posting the message on his Twitter account, the minister and ANC National Chairperson demonstrated his sympathy with the people’s situation. He insisted that things could not go on as they were, claiming that load shedding had a negative impact on the country’s economy.
Gwede Mantashe wrote, “We must improve the performance of @Eskom_SA existing power stations that are not giving us energy whilst we continue to add new generation capacity to the grid. We cannot continue with this load shedding crisis. Watch our conversation on @eNCA here”. Gwede Mantashe lamented the ugly side of load shedding, saying that the government is deeply concerned about the plight of the people induced by this incessant load shedding crisis even as the country battles stage 6 blackout.
Gwede Mantashe responded to some accusations against him which some people are alleging him to be part of the problem. He said that these people talk about him without coming to him face to face to hear from him. He noted that all these accusations and counter-accusations will never solve the problem. However, a social media user responded, “But what you are saying has become a national anthem since 2017 Minister.
What is going to change now. We know the bigger plan (1) Price the product out of the market (increases); (2) defund the entity; and (3) Once the public believe Eskom is useless, sell it. Objective achieved”. Another person urged eNCA to stop interviewing these politicians who are using generators, saying that they usually talk without any action to back up their plenty of talks.
Again, another aggrieved social media user responded, “All talk but no action, why is load shedding only getting worse and no one is held accountable for it? The whole Eskom leadership was supposed to be fired, but instead ANC and Media praise the failures”.