Against the backdrop of one of the worst years of economic growth in 2024 (only 0,4% growth), South Africa has just been plunged back into the dark days of load-shedding once more with a painful reminder of years passed when there were months and months with continuous power outages.
While electricity rates have been hiked continuously above the average inflation rate for decades, supposedly to improve the stability of the energy grid and power generation, one should have been expecting a world class power utility and grid, but in its place the country is once again floundering.
Apart from the hundreds of billions that was over spent on the development of the newest power units in the Eskom power units, there has been a virtual flood of financial mismanagement accounting for more billions lost in fraudulent and wasteful expenditure.
Leadership Disarray
There is apparent chaos happening in the elite political circles today with several politicians and Eskom senior management, seemingly at odds as to what the ultimate cause of the situation is.
Eskom board chairperson Dr Mteto Nyati stated in an interview this morning that it was the persistent rain over the last week that caused the failure due to people who ordinarily use solar power using power from the grid. leading to higher demand. He further stated it was a lack of power supply from independent power producers, also due to the rain that caused the problem.
The Minister of Electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, in his press briefing yesterday, however pointed to the problem of unit failures placing the grid under more pressure, requiring planned power outages to stabilise the power grid. Not to be outdone, ANC Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula, this morning, in a message on X stated that the power outages were nothing other than aggressive planned maintenance that was required to ensure ongoing viability of power generation units that was resulting in necessary outages.
Betrayal of Prosperity for all Promise
At the heart of the issue lies a country that is always so willing and so capable of standing up and making a difference, who are being betrayed by a government who, it would seem has no interest in making life better for it’s citizens.
The Government has proven time and time again that it is incapable of running successful businesses and quite simply it should stop trying to do so. There is now no more time for grand experiments and visions. What we need as a country is real solutions and an end of waste and miss-management.
What South Africa desperately needs is economic growth, jobs, lower cost of living and better utilisation of public funds without the endemic fraud and pilfering that is happening on a grand scale.
Not Normal Not Ever
The only thing the present government seems exceptionally agile at is the spin that follows these awful events In a desperate attempt to make citizen’s believe that these things must be seen to be normal. They are not. It is not normal to have such a massive government produce less and less value each year and to ask for more and more. It is not normal for a country with the highest unemployment rate to keep shooting its economic prospects in the foot. It is not normal for a country that keeps crying for more investment to not care enough to manage the fundamental issues that will secure those investments and ensure a better future for its citizens.
When Government can deem it fit to provide billions in personal protection units for countless politicians, and where they can spend billions in tax payers money on new cars for these same politicians and provide constant power supply to politicians houses, but not to hospitals and schools. And where people employed in government are paid higher salaries on average than private companies but produce failure after failure in services that kills the economy, this ongoing power outage situation of more than 16 years, is not normal at all, and should never be deigned to be okay or acceptable.
