Durban - The South African Federation of Trade Unions will stage a picket at Eskom’s Megawatt Park in Sunninghill on Wednesday.
Saftu’s Lebohang Phanyeko said the union was calling for an end to the continuous blackouts and demanding the resignation of Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter.
“The purpose of this protest is to raise the plight of workers but mostly to raise the frustrations from working-class formations, that they are tired of these mass rolling blackouts happening every day, every night and every morning. We are saying enough is enough. Load shedding must go. De Ruyter must fall. The entire board must fall. Pravin Gordhan must fall,” Phanyeko said.
He said South Africans were tired of blackouts and many people were losing their jobs because of the outages.
“Small and big businesses are being crippled. The purpose of the march is a step towards bigger action which Saftu and its allies are speaking about,” Phanyeko said.
The union’s call comes as the country has been plunged into darkness yet again.
Eskom implemented Stage 4 load shedding on Tuesday, following a breakdown of five generators at five power stations overnight.
Eskom spokesperson Sikhonathi Mantshantsha says a full statement will be issued later in the day.
The implementation of Stage 4 load shedding comes just days after Eskom signed a land lease agreement with independent clean power generators.
Last week, Eskom said it had signed lease agreements with four independent investors, for the commercial lease and use of land parcels at two of its power stations in Mpumalanga. The land is for the construction of new clean energy generation capacity.
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