Blah, blah, blah. On July 27, President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered a 3 177-word address on South Africa’s energy crisis, in which he proposed “implementing additional measures to achieve long-term energy security and end load-shedding for good”.
A crisis “is either an event or period that will lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group or all of society”. This begs the question: Is the debacle or fiasco that is Eskom an event or a period?
The address had seven themes: vulnerability of electricity system; fixing Eskom; procurement of new capacity; the need for greater private investment; investment in rooftop solar; transforming the electricity sector; and the need for a joint effort.
Ramaphosa said the sets of additional measures to end load-shedding were five in total: “[The first is] aimed at improving the performance of Eskom’s existing fleet of power stations; [the] second will accelerate the procurement of new generation capacity; [the third is] intended to massively increase private investment in generation capacity; [the fourth is] designed to enable businesses and households to invest in rooftop solar; and [the fifth is] directed at fundamentally transforming the electricity sector and positioning it for future sustainability.”
As I have stated previously, South Africans have become comfortably numb, implying a state of severe alienation and burnout. In essence, South Africans have built a “mental wall” to shield themselves from, among other things, State capture, mismanagement and crony capitalism. In his address, the President mentioned ‘State Capture’ and ‘mismanagement’ only once and was completely mum about ‘crony capitalism’. This elephant in the room is defined as “an economic system in which businesses thrive not as a result of free enterprise, but rather as a return on money amassed through collusion between the business class and the political class”.
Cast your mind back to the R178-billion “dodgy tender tsunami” reported by Fin24 on May 3, 2021. According to the article, “this is the value of dodgy, ‘red-flagged’ tenders awarded by South Africa’s power utility Eskom over the past decade to companies, including multinational conglomerates, that are tainted by corruption or misconduct”.
On July 24, 2021, in an article that appeared under the headline ‘End of the line for ANC economics: More than two decades of corruption and misgovernment have led to crisis’, The Economist reported: “This has been largely to blame for one of the world’s highest unemployment rates, which stems from a growth-sapping mix of crony capitalism, fossilised State-owned industries and laws that discourage businesses from vhiring new workers.”
Fin24 had reported in March 2020 that the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises had been told in a briefing that there was an urgent need for the following actions at Eskom: dealing with its debt; cleaning up corruption; reviewing its contracts; revenue adjustments; expansion into renewable energy; cutting costs; and restructuring.
So, how is Eskom keeping the lights on? According to Ramaphosa’s address, “Eskom deferred essential maintenance to keep the lights on, which is causing breakdowns and failures now”. If that doesn’t send a chill down your spine, I don’t know what will. Also consider this: “The average age of Eskom’s power stations is 35 years. Generally, as power stations get older, their performance deteriorates.”
Ramaphosa also mentioned that a number of neighbouring countries, such as Botswana and Zambia, have more electricity generation capacity than they require. Eskom will now import power from those countries through the Southern African Power Pool.
Having studied the address, the takeaway is reminiscent of the interaction between an Old Lady and Ted Striker, the fictional pilot who is desperately fighting to regain control of a totally out-of-control and nonresponsive airplane in the 1980 parody movie of the disaster film genre Airplane! Old Lady: “Nervous?” Ted: “Yes.” Old Lady: “First time?” Ted: “No. I’ve been nervous lots of times.”