In the present situation, it is very hard to stay away from the Eskom story. The more it goes wrong, the more bizzare it becomes.

School teacher Lynne Brown (Public Enterprises Minister), university lecturer Tina Joemat-Pettersson (Energy Minister), the Gupta family and the Eskom board remind me of the saying in the Sanskrit Katha Upanishad: “Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither, like blind led by the blind . . .”

Actually, that is a bit insulting to blind people, since all the ones that I know are not fools. One should be more pointed, as in “they’re dumber than a box of rocks”. Or: “If brains were dynamite, they couldn’t blow their nose.”

We do have to worry as simple facts emerge that we would rather not know about: tales of coal which is substandard and has a high ash content and which resulted in an explosion in a boiler at Duvha power station and others. Then ex-CEO Tshediso Matona told us in December last year: “Our responsibility is to ensure that we do not compromise the power system; therefore, we will continue to safeguard and protect South Africa’s power system and will implement load-shedding if absolutely necessary.”

Well, clearly, that day has come. Absolutely necessary. So, does this make you feel more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs? It should not. The simple fact is that there is but one cause of all our power system problems – it is the power generation side of things. Eskom’s transmission and distribution divisions are doing fine, thank you.

To date, there have been no reports of stupid transmission failures. Do not get me wrong – you may think that, once the power line is up, nothing much can actually go wrong. Totally not true. Stupid power system operating by National Control can easily disconnect large parts of the interconnected power system with a system instability which can see the grid collapse to half capacity in less than a minute or two. But this has not happened. I was going to say: “Fortunately, this has not happened.” But this is not what I mean. It has not happened since the system transmission operation people are doing their job, and doing it well.

The problems all come from generation and here the problems all have the same recurring theme: they all are a result of corruption. The Medupi power station costs four times what it should and is four years behind schedule. According to Eskom, the name chosen for the station, Medupi, is a Sepedi word for ‘rain that soaks parched lands’. The “parched lands” that have been soaked are, firstly, the African National Congress, which held a 25% share of the boiler supplier, Hitachi, and stood to make a profit of close to R1-billion on the deal and, secondly, any amount of dodgy coal suppliers who have on occasion been paid for coal not actually delivered. There are also diesel fuel suppliers and owners of maintenance companies who, coincidentally, happen to be related to ANC Cabinet Ministers who sit on the Eskom board.

If anyone thinks that any of these things is above board, then they are depriving a village somewhere of an idiot. But I do not care, really. If the power plant was maintained properly, if the coal was delivered and was of good quality, if every corrupt Eskom deal implied that Eskom worked, well, what of it?

The problem is that this is not so. Maintenance that is no good is paid for anyway. The coal is junk. A hundred things just do not work. All the corrupt Eskom politicians and cronies may get away with it. But there is a price. Somewhere there is a dialysis machine which stops since the power is interrupted and the genset does not kick in. Somewhere a baby in an incubator pops off since the incubator trips when the power goes out. Traffic lights stop working and there is an increased accident rate – some drivers die. Also, some smarmy boot-faced ruthlessly self-interested smug fool of a politician can be rich. It is sad and sickening.