President Cyril Ramaphosa has cancelled his planned trip to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, at the eleventh hour in a bid to address the ongoing energy crisis in South Africa.
Presidency spokesperson Vicent Magwenya posted a message to Twitter on Sunday announcing the cancellation.
“Due to the ongoing energy crisis, President Cyril Ramaphosa has cancelled his working visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Currently, the President is convening a meeting with leaders of political parties represented in parliament, National Energy Crisis Committee (NECCOM), and the Eskom board.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa has already engaged with the leadership of Eskom and NECCOM, and those meetings will continue. More briefing sessions to key stakeholders will take place during this coming week,” Magwenya said.
Ramaphosa was supposed to lead an SA delegation of government ministers and captains of industries to the annual pilgrimage in Davos to plead South Africa’s case as an investment destination.
The WEF’s annual meeting is scheduled to start on Monday, running through to Friday.
The cancellation of the trip comes after Eskom announced last week Wednesday that stage 6 load shedding would run continuously until further notice, with no indication when it will move down.
This is not the first time Ramaphosa has cancelled his overseas visits to deal with the energy crisis.
In September last year, Ramaphosa cut his trip to the US/UK short to attend to the electricity crisis.
Meanwhile, several high-profile leaders and major groups say they have no other choice but to take government, Eskom and the National Energy Regulator of SA (NERSA) to court over the load shedding crisis.
Prominent advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC confirmed to Rapport on Friday that he had received the backing of UDM leader Bantu Holomisa, Build One SA leader Mmusi Maimane and policy analyst Lukhona Mnguni for the court application.
Source: News24, IOL, SABC News, Times Live, image from Twitter: @insightfactor