SA is running out of time to resolve Eskom’s inability to supply electricity efficiently

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File image.

Published Sep 24, 2022

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Editorial

Johannesburg - Promises have been made and broken.

New promises have been made with no intention of being kept.

It is now 2022, 15 years since the infamous phrase load shedding first entered our lexicon – and the situation is getting worse.

There is no plan because, as many experts have pointed out, there is no political will.

The utility is overstaffed and over paid, yet underperforms appallingly.

The numbers of staff should be cut, but the government cannot in a country where unemployment is already at an all-time high.

It cannot allow the executives who run this state-owned enterprise (SOE) to appoint expert service providers, once again because of political imperatives that have little to do with efficiency and everything to do with support for the ANC.

The same argument holds true for the government’s continued insistence on coal generated power – even though this is a massive contributor to climate change.

It is why any attempt to meaningfully allow independent power producers to feed into the grid is continually frustrated.

Eskom is a mess. No one is being held to account because the president can’t really afford to be too robust for losing the fragile grip on power that he holds within the party.

South Africa is being held to ransom by a party that is one in name only and voted for by an ever-diminishing number of voters – and yet the country is impotent.

The ANC knows this, which is why there is so little direct action on the crises it actually acknowledges do affect us, whether it be Eskom, service delivery or corruption.

We all know what to do, Cyril Ramaphosa does most of all, but it is easier to describe the problem than act.

We are fast running out of time – the increasing frequency and severity of these blackouts tell us that, even if no one in government actually wants to listen.

The Saturday Star