No political will to solve power crisis

We need to be honest with ourselves: the apartheid regime managed things better. I know some don’t want to hear this. The houses that were built by that regime remain strong even today. Yet the ANC called them “match boxes”. Government departments and its utilities were well managed.

I’m not in any way comparing apartheid to democracy. Apartheid remains a crime against humanity. The apartheid regime did good things for the white community and treated blacks as subhumans. Not only that, but it also killed, maimed and tortured black people for being different. That was cruel.

Before 1994, Eskom was among the best-performing utilities in SA. It also supplied electricity to other countries.

Fast-forward to 1994. The ANC government adopted a working Eskom. Instead of maintaining the high standard, the democratic government has brought the power utility down. Since 2010, the country has been suffering from load shedding.

The problem with Eskom is not management or money, but politics. In other words, there is no political will to solve the electricity crisis. If Eskom does not work, South Africa does not work.

During the State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa, pictured, said load shedding is a thing of the past.

The same night, Eskom announced stage 4 load shedding. It then escalated to stage 6 over the weekend.

It has been 14 years since load shedding started. And we’ve been told one and the same thing by our political leaders, “electricity blackouts will be over soon”. Now these words sound like a stuck record. But it does not seem to matter to our political leaders.