This is too ghastly to contemplate

SCEPTICS have reflected that if South Africa was a doomsday clock, the time would be perennially fixed at 11.55pm. Five minutes to the end of the world – not as we know it, but altogether.

Some wags will tell you that South Africa has been like that since Jan van Riebeeck first stepped ashore on April 6, 1652, setting off centuries of calamities and crises.

The past few years haven’t been much better. With the exception of that brief halcyon moment of joy sparked by the Fifa World Cup, we have stumbled from one crisis to another.

The year 2019 is not shaping up to be a ray of hope on the horizon. To be precise, we are hardly six weeks into the new year and the situation is proving to be bleak.

This time, the major cause of discontent is the perennial dark horse – Eskom.

After a quiet January, Eskom has burst on to the stage with a vengeance. On Monday the parastatal declared Stage 4, the mostly serious, perilous stage before a total collapse. This, we were told, was because at least six power units – at Arnot, Kusile, Kriel, Duvha, Matla, Medupi and Grootvlei – were not in service.

The losses to generation capacity have amounted to thousands of megawatts, forcing Eskom to withdraw 4 000 megawatts from the grid.

This is unconscionable. On Tuesday at peak period, only 27 305MW were available against a demand of 30 033MW. This is scary, especially considering that Eskom has a generating capacity of more than 47 000MW.

Eskom is a central pillar of our economy. It could severely damage our economic and social development ambitions.

If it fails, everything else will crumble. A crisis-ridden Eskom poses great risks to South Africa. Our industries need energy to power and grow the economy; and jobs are created through a vibrant, dynamic economy.

In its latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, Stats SA says the country’s unemployment rate dipped slightly to 27.1% from 27.5% during the previous three months – hardly good news in a country which needs a robust growth rate to make a dent in the 6.1 million unemployed figure.

After years of corruption and rampant looting – now aggravated by faulty design and construction at the new Medupi and Kusile plants – Eskom is on its knees.

If we do not see rapid solutions, South Africa will follow suit.

This is too ghastly to contemplate.