The Eskom fiasco will take years to fix

The blame game is not helping to fix the problems at the power utility, writes

Piet, you are correct. Maintenance at Eskom power stations was badly neglected after 1994. It was done while cadres deployed by the ANC under the previous president were looting the company. As a result the power stations are so run down that unscheduled outages happen virtually daily.

The present board and management have been put in place to turn Eskom around. They are not to blame for the present state of the power stations and they are working under extremely difficult circumstances. It serves no purpose to attack them.

“Fixing” Eskom is going to take years. Given the state of the plant, there can be no quick fix. It costs a lot and can take many months to overhaul a unit properly. Apart from the financial constraints, the more plant taken out of service for planned maintenance the harder the rest of the units have to work.

This, in turn, increases the risk of breakdowns.

Taking more plants out of service for overhaul will shorten the time needed to get all the plant up to scratch but it will increase load shedding.

Taking less plants out of service will prolong the time needed to ensure that load shedding is no longer required.