For many months now, South Africa has been wondering why the country has been plunged into darkness. We have gotten so used to the terms ‘load shedding’ and black outs. Everyone was talking about the electricity crisis, even children who barely new what was happening knew that there was something called Eskom and it was responsible for the loss of electricity in their homes. Now a report has been made which looks into what has actually caused this electricity crisis in South Africa. The report brings together the opinions and recommendations of 50 government leaders and businessmen on the crisis and outlines proposals to resolve it.

One of the main causes for this crisis was the governments in-ability to act when they were told there was going to be a crisis. The government refused for Eskom to build new power plants in order to be able to meet the current high demand. Government is not the only one to blame for this crisis; Eskom themselves are also to blame. Eskom failed to hold onto skilled personnel who would have been ideal to have in moments like this to help Eskom get back on track. Eskom are also believed to not have done enough to extend the long-term contracts that had ensured cheap coal supplies and instead increasingly sourced its coal from small, inexperienced and expensive suppliers for the sake of BEE compliance. Coal plays such a critical role in electricity generation in South Africa, surely securing adequate supplies who have been top of Eskom’s to do list?

Now that there is some indication of what caused the crisis, the next step should be how best this electricity crisis can be fixed. The first step has already happened with Eskom getting electricity tariffs to be increased. This tariff increase is meant to generate more money for Eskom that can then be used to build new power stations. Secondly, adequate coal supplies have to be secured at an affordable price and the coal must be of a decent quality. Lastly, it is about time that the electricity industry is overhauled by opening it up to the private sector. If Eskom has some competition on its hands, it may force them to do a better job.

If the government and Eskom can get things correct then we may not be headed for darker days in South Africa. Demand for electricity is going to continue increasing as the economy sets to grow. With 2010 around the corner, it would be sad if South Africa is caught in the dark.

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