Does Eskom have competent engineers left?

indicates that Medupi will not be fully commissioned before 2025, some 18 years after the project began. That is not just failure, it is truly laughable in the engineering world, only possible in Africa: the capital interest charges alone will make Eskom’s annual budget look silly, but who cares? We will never get to that point as the country will have gone bang long before.

The country’s failure will be partially attributed to Zumadom, but the chief contributor to its demise will be Eskom’s simple refusal to accept that affirmative action employment is not consistent with the needs of a modern power station. The old joke of “I can spell ‘engineer’, therefore I are one!” definitely does not apply. Power station engineering demands some of the best intelligence, many years of practical experience and, most of all, energy in order to stay on top of the job. Of course, it would help if Eskom executives provided a good example to their staff; instead, their energies are concentrated on their next golden handshake and departing before they are proven to be useless.