The Democratic Alliance (DA) has expressed its disapproval of a tender recently issued by Eskom tasking suppliers to provide services for the design of a new logo and the development of a new corporate identity.

The party has labelled this as a “completely unnecessary vanity project” that fails to solve the country’s loadshedding crisis, adding that it does nothing to address the woes of consumers who continue to struggle under high electricity tariffs. 

The DA has called for Eskom CEO Caleb Cassim to rescind the tender, also condemning the 31.4% tariff increase imposed by the power utility earlier this year.

DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises Ghaleb Cachalia has urged Eskom to reorient its strategy towards finding new ways of increasing generation capacity. 

“South Africans are currently going through one of the worst cost-of-living crises in recent memory, thanks in part to Eskom’s sky-high electricity tariffs. This after taxpayers have spent over R180-billion bailing out Eskom with no corresponding improvement in the supply of electricity. Early this year, R254-billion of Eskom’s debt was taken over by government and is now the financial burden of overstretched taxpayers,” he said.