No end in sight to load shedding

AS CALLS increase on the government to expedite energy generation from independent producers, politicians are having a field day with their conjuncture.

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said the target to eradicate load shedding was 12 to 18 months. Meanwhile, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe claimed that there was excess electricity idling in the system.

Mantashe further said it would take six to 12 months to address rolling blackouts if Eskom paid attention to the problem. However, the so-called experts dismiss his claims as outright lies.

In the midst of all this, imagine the plight of Koko Modipadi from Sekabing in Limpopo. She started a café after serving as a domestic worker for 35 years, but it’s operating at a loss due to never-ending power interruptions.

Now she’ll have to contend with the electricity tariff increase amid paying higher costs for a gas cooker to keep the business running during load shedding. That’s beside some economic activities in her community collapsing as a consequence of damaged electrical equipment repudiated by insurers. Yet promises are recycled into platitudes with no end in sight.

In March 2019, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said Eskom would overcome the electricity crisis in two years’ time. But the blackouts went completely haywire, exposing Gordhan’s vacuity of ideas to arrest the root cause of the crisis.

Moreover, outgoing Eskom CEO André de Ruyter couldn’t account for putting the country under the worst stages of load shedding in history. In July last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a 10-point crisis plan to be implemented over two years. Still, De Ruyter couldn’t pull it off. So, no amount of red herring will (add) gloss (to) such ineptitude. Even that blame-shifting narrative of “nine wasted years” won’t wash. For load shedding has decimated most of the socioeconomic transformation milestones.