Zuma is Eskom’s destroyer
It is extremely annoying and worrying to keep reading “at least [Jacob] Zuma kept the lights on”, which is not correct as load-shedding started in earnest in 2014. Zuma inherited a fully functional utility when he took over as president in 2007, but what did happen on his watch was Eskom was mismanaged and allowed to be systematically plundered by some of the crooks he appointed.
Instead of maintaining the utility’s infrastructure and planning for increased demand as government was advised, some managers allowed the organisation to be defrauded on a grand scale. A cash flush Eskom in 1995 eventually ran up a debt of more than R400bn through a culture of nonpayment by local authorities and the tender fraud that was allowed to happen within the organisation.
The two new coal-fired plants that were commissioned and built, Kusile and Medupi, over-ran their budgets by ridiculous margins and have never achieved the level of generation they were designed for. Some of the structures were so badly built they had to be demolished and rebuilt.
Anyone with half a brain knows the crime syndicates within the organisation are hell-bent on maintaining their ability to plunder, hence they desperately need to get rid of Eskom CEO André De Ruyter and his management team in the hope that they will get some lame duck they can bribe.
While the fraud and sabotage continue unabated, government and the police seem unconcerned. President Cyril Ramaphosa keeps saying the problem is being attended to, but there is actually no action being taken. He keeps telling the international community SA is a safe place to invest in, but investors are not fools.
SA’s economy cannot survive without an adequate and regular supply of electricity. It is the most serious crisis facing our country and government appears to be, like Nero, fiddling while Rome burns.
Johann Kruger Noordhoek
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