Another DA billboard vandalised
A second DA billboard has been vandalised in Johannesburg, just hours after being erected.
The billboard said: “The ANC has killed the lights affecting 57 million South Africans!”
DA chief whip John Steenhuisen unveiled the billboard on Sunday on the Queen Elizabeth Bridge in downtown Johannesburg, hot on the heels of a week of load-shedding by Eskom, taking aim at the ruling party’s mismanagement of the electricity utility.
But by Monday morning it had been largely destroyed.
Steenhuisen tweeted on Monday: “Can’t keep the lights burning so burn billboards instead? Obviously the truth hurts, the billboard will be up again shortly to keep reminding our citizens that we don’t have an Eskom problem, we have an ANC problem!”
Steenhuisen said on Sunday that the ANC had left Eskom besieged with “corruption, inefficiency, mismanagement and debt”.
“The previous management teams at Eskom have plundered the crippled state-owned entity through pre-paid coal contracts, nepotism, inflated supply contracts and exorbitant consultancy fees with the likes of Mckinsey, Trillian and Tegeta. Furthermore, Eskom executives have consistently rewarded themselves with massive bonuses and salaries. These actions have hollowed out the entity and left it in financial ruin.”
Steenhuisen believed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s proposal to unbundle Eskom into a holding company, with three separate business entities to be owned entirely by the holding company, would fail because each of the three entities would have the same holding board.
Can’t keep the lights burning so burn billboards instead? Obviously the truth hurts, the billboard will be up again shortly to keep reminding our citizens that we don’t have an Eskom problem, we have an ANC problem!💡 pic.twitter.com/32VooN2dBa
— John Steenhuisen MP (@jsteenhuisen) February 18, 2019
The DA was proposing that Eskom be broken into a generation and transmission entity, Steenhuisen said.
The new billboard was vandalised about a month after another DA billboard was vandalised in Johannesburg. That one listed the names of children who had died after falling into pit latrines and the victims of the Marikana and Life Esidimeni tragedies.
Steenhuisen said on Monday that the party would fix the billboard and lay a complaint against the saboteurs at the Parkview police station.
"No amount of vandalism or arson will hide the fact that Eskom continues to fail in its mandate of providing services to the people of South Africa."
The ANC are doing a wonderful job helping the DA. Doing this keeps this billboard in the headlines 🤣🤣🤣🤣
— Lackadaisical Wimpy Van Zupta (@capeislekka) February 18, 2019
DA is wasting money with these Billboards, they must even hire a security for their Billboards now https://t.co/q64qGryhRB
— Mzizana (@Lungisa35) February 18, 2019
Dear #DA, your billboards are making the #anc lose their 💩 completely.😂 Keep them coming.🤗💙🇿🇦 @MmusiMaimane
— ALETTAHA☺♥☀ (@ALETTAHA) February 18, 2019
Next thing the DA will have to put up cameras to live stream it's billboards 24/7 to try and catch the culprits.
— Herman Groenendaal (@HermanHG) February 18, 2019
@Our_DA I cannot for the life of me fathom why you would waste money putting up billboards aimed at disparaging your opposition. Would you not be better off telling us what you can do better or better yet showing us what you have done better?
— Eccentric King (@EccentricKing) February 18, 2019
The burned Billboard is even more effective in my view. https://t.co/y2cOA0rWDX
— Faux Cousins (@DjukaMatauri) February 18, 2019