Cape Town – Minister Lindiwe Zulu’s reaction to being load shed half an hour into her interview with SABC journalist Vuyo Mvoko has gone viral.
During Wednesday’s episode of Mvoko’s show, “The Watchdog”, the social development minister was discussing her department’s performance in the rollout of the R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant.
Just as she started answering, Zulu was surprised by the power cut and was instantly cloaked in darkness.
“We are dealing with something that we only had two weeks to implement. When President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the SRD R350, we had no system whatsoever to implement it.
“This was very different from all the grants that we deliver to our people. People had to apply online and get approved online. No one went to a Sassa office to apply for this money,” said Zulu.
“So we needed to put systems in place and make sure from May [2020] at the time this announcement was made, and the other complication was that in order to be able to pay people…”
Zulu was cut off when the power went out, but not before saying, “Oh No!”.
Mvoko intervened, but was able to come back to the minister, where she addressed what had happened.
“Sorry. That was load shedding. My sincere apologies,” she said. ”Yes, we back again.”
The moment has since gone viral on TikTok and Twitter, with many commenting on how the incident was an apt visual representation of what it’s like living in the country, and feeling the impact of load shedding.