Millstone around the neck of SA

If ever there was a light at the end of that depressing tunnel which appears to be the future of our country, then we worry that Eskom’s latest load shedding fiasco may have turned it off for good. On the verge of a new ratings assessment by influential global ratings agencies, the latest bout of power outages – at the stage two level, which has been calculated to cost South Africa R2 billion a day in lost production – will, surely, have a massive negative influence on how this country is perceived by outsiders and particularly investors.

And, no matter how many excuses the power utility offers up, this load shedding is a fiasco.

Firstly, those people running the utility would have known at least 48 hours before the load shedding began that trouble was on the way.

One of the factors blamed for the lack of power capacity is that a conveyor belt broke at a power station on Saturday. Other factors involved were also known some time before the power went off suddenly yesterday morning … so suddenly that even major municipal customers, such as City Power in Joburg, had to hear of it in the media.

That smacks of either unbelievable incompetence on the part of Eskom, or of a deliberate stratagem to make matters as bad as possible. Many have pointed out the stage two load shedding happened just as the power company was caught up in an angry debate with the energy regulator about increasing tariffs.

Interesting coincidence – that’s about all we can say about that.

Whatever the reasons behind the massive, unexpected disruption, it underlines the fact that Eskom is the millstone around the neck of this country.

It needs to be properly staffed by professionals or it needs to be split up and sold off … if not it will drown all of us.