TRYING THE PATIENCE OF THE POOR
As the darkness becomes overwhelming, desperation could take over
We know just how badly the electricity blackouts are affecting South African business and the economy in general. Recent company results read like a horror novel.
Take, for example, retailer Pick n Pay. In its trading update for the 43 weeks ended December 25, the company said it spent an additional R346m, year on year, on diesel to run generators at its stores. Competitor Shoprite is in the same pickle: it spent R560m on diesel to operate generators across its South African stores to trade uninterrupted during load-shedding in just the past six months.
Recently, mobile network operator MTN announced that the blackouts had shaved R695m from its earnings for the year ending 2022. Last November, Vodacom said it had spent R2bn on batteries due to continued rolling blackouts.
The cumulative effect is catastrophic: Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago says economic growth will dwindle to a paltry 0.3% this year from 1.1% last year. Growth could have been 2.3% this year were it not for the blackouts. If these blackouts continue, the economic loss to the country will be a staggering $12.7bn.
I was driving through my mother’s village in Hammanskraal, the place where I grew up just north of Pretoria, when some of these devastating statistics flashed through my mind. It was 8pm. It was pitch black
not even the stars provided the night light I grew up with in that village. There was no electricity until 1996 when the Mandela administration rolled out water and lights. Now, after just 27 years, the village is often back to the dark days. As I drove along, slowly and gingerly, I reflected on the visceral effect of loadshedding and government incompetence on ordinary people.
In that village, a few of the main roads were partly tarred and then abandoned by contractors when the Tshwane council supposedly ran out of money. With the recent rains, the roads have turned into dongas. They are unpassable. I had to either park my car a block from my mother’s house or take a roundabout route.
Then there is the load-shedding. In the evening, youngsters set piles of rubbish alight in the streets to create some light as they gather to gamble or smoke or hang out. Smoke plumes go up into the sky. I arrived at my friend Donny’s home and when I told him about the rubbish fires, he said to me: “Feudalism, eh?”
Now, MTN and Pick n Pay and others have very active voices such as Business Leadership South Africa, Business Unity South Africa, the Banking Association South Africa and many others representing them. These organisations pull out statistics such as those mentioned above and put them in front of the president and his cabinet and demand action.
Who speaks for my mother’s village? Who speaks for the young woman who walks home from the taxi stop, in the load-shedding darkness, in fear, towards her home? Who speaks for the workers who lose their jobs because their employers cannot hang on as load-shedding devastates their businesses?
The local councillors in many of these communities are ANC. At what point do ordinary people go from hope that things will get better to anger and anarchy?
There is something that has struck me over the past six weeks travelling around South Africa. In many townships, there are intersections that have burnt tyre marks across them. In the areas around Tshwane, particularly Soshanguve, Winterveldt and the long line of villages in Hammanskraal, there are protests and barricaded streets almost every week. They are not written about or reported on. They are sparks. Will they cause a fire?
What is remarkable about South
Africa is that after the devastation of state capture, Covid, load-shedding and corruption, the country’s citizens still believe things will change for the better.
The chattering classes are not in open revolt, though there are many angry voices. The poor are still very much getting up in the morning and seeking work, the employed turning up and working, and the executives still leading in challenging times.
We should be grateful for this. We should also be cognisant of the fact that this will not always be the case.
Patience runs out. Hope fades when subjected to so much frustration.
We are running out of time. It’s desperate out there.