The government of the Republic of South Africa is the sole shareholder of Eskom.
Let’s swipe non-payment of electricity by residents to the left for a moment. This is a legitimate reason for Eskom to shut down power. So are illegal connections and cable theft; these too are gateways to living in prolonged darkness.
But it is those who are in the dark regardless, whose songs I sing. It is them who show us that citizen interference is merely one side of this “electricity crisis” coin we are spinning.
The other side is municipalities and their corruption that compromises and impacts service delivery negatively.
Said corruption is perpetrated by municipal officials, councilors and members of society.
Bribery is a norm. Fraud, nepotism, and systematic corruption are some of the forms of the injustices taking place in our municipalities.
In the mid 1990’s in Soweto, when I was a boy of about 8-years-old, my father would send me to a BP garage in Protea Glen to purchase a token for electricity, about 4km away or an hour walk from Green Village, where I grew up.
It is those who are in the dark regardless, whose songs I sing since
For an 8-year-old to walk two hour to and fro getting an electricity token worth a few kilowatts of power, only to have it turned off from 5am to 9am, is an injustice.
It is ironic how the power cuts are unilateral.
Municipal buildings are always lit. But we understand. We have always been collateral.
All the wi-fi spots built ahead of homes for our people. In an attempt to maintain a facade of “world class African cities”. The internet has made us forget that we are hungry.
That we are poor.
We are now paying 15.63 percent to Eskom for electricity that we can’t use from 5am to 9am, thanks to the power utilities so-called “load reduction”.
Whatever cloak the Load is covered in, whether shedding or reduction, it will never drive us to sleep.
We will Ignite a matchstick and start a fire. The same fires we burn tires with in protest, will burn wood and keep us warm in our RDPs. Will boil water for a bath, and we will arrive at our dead-end jobs. Make change (pennies, not transformation) and put food on our candle lit tables.
We will pray our township is not on the list, again. Even if it isn't, we will still pray for the lights to stay.
When Eskom said municipalities owed it R35.2 billion and it wants its money, this is where we swipe right on municipalities. On the ANC-led government.
I remember in 2015, former President Jacob Zuma said this electricity crises was inherited from an apartheid regime that primarily created the infrastructure for whites.
That the infrastructure can not sustain our growing population.
The ANC-led government is the sole shareholder of Eskom.
This electricity crisis is an in-fight. And we are collateral.