Pretoria - Pressure is mounting on Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan to rescind his decision to appeal the ruling of the full Bench of the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, ordering the government to provide energy to hospitals, schools and police stations.
Yesterday, Build One South Africa (Bosa) leader Mmusi Maimane asked South Africans to support his petition asking Gordhan to stop the appeal or face the wrath of political, labour and civil society organisations in court.
He lodged his petition outside Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital yesterday.
“After last week’s court ruling, … Minister Gordhan wants to prolong this ‘human catastrophe’ legally, through the courts … If Gordhan and his Cabinet colleagues can receive uninterrupted electricity at their luxurious homes, then there is no excuse for hospitals, schools and police stations to go without.
“Cabinet ministers have been shielded from blackouts by government spending more than R7 million to buy generators and inverters for them at their official homes,” Maimane said.
“We will be approaching every organisation that welcomed this judgment, including trade unions Denosa, Sadtu and Popcru. Additionally, we appeal to those inside the ANC and government who do not agree with Minister Gordhan’s approach to speak up and sign the petition.
“Minister Gordhan, we wish to remind you that every death at a hospital without power, every crime that cannot be reported or investigated due to load shedding, and every child’s education that is affected by classrooms in darkness, is in his hands,” he said.
SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi accused government ministers of not caring for the lives of ordinary people.
Vavi said it was shameful that Gordhan would waste state resources fighting the ruling, instead of assembling resources to fix Eskom so that they could comply with the ruling.
He said Saftu’s concern and interest as a federation lay with fixing the Eskom fleet and restoring it to stability so that it could supply electricity uninterruptedly to the economy and households.
“The minister’s posture does not surprise us, however. He and his colleagues in Cabinet are not affected by load shedding in many ways. The learning endeavours of their children are not negatively affected by load shedding because their children attend posh private schools that have back-up energy generators.
“It is our children and their educators in poor public schools who have to bear the brunt of power cuts.
“Their families do not use the public healthcare system. They have top medical aids that qualify them for treatment in expensive hospitals in Europe. It is our families and us who lose our lives in hospitals because life-saving surgeries could not be performed in darkness due to load shedding.
“They and their families live in secure residential complexes in posh suburbs … It is us in working-class communities – farms, villages and townships – who suffer lack of emergency response from police stations because their landlines are not working,” Vavi said.
Gordhan has yet to file his papers.
Pretoria News