Petition by the Oudtshoorn Community Initiative for and on behalf of the citizen of Oudtshoorn.

Hereby, we the citizen of the greater Oudtshoorn who have signed this petition (see attached our signatures) formally object against Eskom’s application to increase the price of electricity by 20.5% in the 2022 / 2023 financial year.

A planned increase below inflation of 5.5% will be a more viable option, but even if agreed upon will still burden the end user who simply cannot afford this increase.

The citizens of Oudtshoorn are struggling to make ends meet over and above the impact of the current Covid-19 pandemic and the national lockdown that affected jobs and food security.

Factoring in load shedding of the past years, rising fuel and food cost and rising cost of energy, we sit with extremely dangerously high levels of unemployment and poverty within our town.

To make matters worse, during the Zondo Commission hearings we as citizen had to listen to the allegations of high levels of theft, fraud, corruption and mismanagement of funds at Eskom with a seemingly incompetent management team at the state-owned enterprise that are incapable of solving South Africa’s energy crisis.

If this planned hike gets approved, more of our citizens will have to choose between electricity and food on the table, when you need both to take care of children, the elderly’s and vulnerable people’s basic needs.

Therefore, we request that you reconsider Eskom’s application and do not approve the electricity hike of 20.5%.  We ask you not to allow the mismanagement of funds at Eskom to become the albatross of the citizens of our country.