Eskom, get your house in order

THIS week, South Africans united – in misery – as Eskom implemented its arbitrary and often inexplicable load shedding schedule.

Those who were used to having electricity in their homes understood yet again what it is like to only have candles for light and paraffin or gas stoves to cook on.

But this was not the cold winter of 2007/8.

The coal was not wet – when we were told then why South Africa would endure rolling power cuts.

Ironically, this week, most of the country sweltered under a heat wave.

To make matters worse, there are reports that there is more than enough coal of the requisite standard but that it is Eskom’s procurement practices that have precipitated this crisis.

Alternatively, it could be the scheduled maintenance shutdown of too many power plants.

We don’t know what the truth is amid the spin and the counterspin of what is not just a national disgrace, but the harbinger of another economic crisis we can ill afford.

In the midst of this, we have Eskom board chairperson Jabu Mabuza this week behaving like Marie Antoinette, telling us that the crisis is all of South Africa’s responsibility.

“This is a problem,” he said, “that we all have caused.”

No, sir, it is not.

Eskom is the poster child of state capture, deliberately mismanaged to criminally extract billions which had been budgeted to prevent the current crisis to divert them into the pockets of a political elite whose greed spread across other stateowned enterprises and then extended to emasculating the very state organs that could have held them to account.

If we are responsible, as you suggest, it is that we did not rise up in revolution against them.

Surely that’s not what you intended?

Fix the power supply now – otherwise you might well see your wish realised come May.