How crazy is Eskom! Last week they had the audacity to ask the government to allow them to increase electricity tariffs by 53%. This is on the back of an early increase of over 10% less than 4 months ago. Eskom seems to be a joke of a company and I am not sure if I am surprised. Like crime, Eskom has become one of the most detested parts of our country. Poor management and foolishness has led to a difficult and seemly endless electricity shortages in South Africa. You would think that the government would have taken some blame since Eskom is its baby and someone would have been fired but no, the president in his wisdom was of the view that the whole cabinet was to blame and not the then Minister of Energy, Phumuzile Mlambo-Ncguka. So if the whole cabinet is to blame they should fire themselves or humbly resign because what is happening is shamefully unacceptable.
What I really dislike about the whole electricity issue is the heavy dose of human error and failure involved in it. Yes, they argue unseasonably high rainfall affecting the coal supplies. However, does Eskom not have Risk Managers and scenario analysts who have many a Plan B to deal with unseasonably high rainfall? The shocking thing is that they probably have highly paid people who are seating on their hands while we crash into the dark ages. I am a big believer in the dismissal of people who fail to do a good job in critical areas like electricity, finance, safety and security, social security and health care. Yes, I do acknowledge that pretty much 50% of most employees in these sectors would have lost their jobs by now but we should only dismiss the leaders and strategists. They seem to be clueless about running massive multibillion Rand industries anyway, so let’s just try get the best people for the job. An option would be to privatise strategic industries like water and electricity but I fear that would not be a good idea as most of our country’s poor would suffer the most.
People, this is a tricky situation going forward but I think the government and Eskom should be having sleepless nights thinking about how best to deal with this problem. The scary thing about electricity is that it is the most important part of our economic development, growth and survival, such that any tomfoolery has a massively negative effect on the whole population. It is therefore pertinent that our leaders stop dropping the ball on this. Instead of asking for more money, Eskom should be importing more coal. I can’t understand why a tariff increase is necessary? Did Trevor Manual not allocate money for Eskom in the latest budget? Eskom should rather first sort out the current problem and then ask for more money.
We are already hamstrung by the high cost of fuel, food, and mortgages. Adding over 50% more in electricity costs to our monthly budgets would destroy some families and make it harder for some. Eskom and government have to be wise about the increases. The world economy is slowing down and that is affecting South Africa and the recent fall in the commodity sector like gold makes it hard for South Africa to earn more money through gold exports. In the short term we are in for a really hard ride and the government should prepare us and do their best to make that ride bearable. One thing would be to refuse the Eskom tariff hike until they improve the current electricity problem. Maybe I am being unreasonable but I am just tired of silly and preventable mistakes having such dire consequences.
