Picture File: A general view of Eskom's Tutuka Power Station in Standerton, South Africa. Picture: Gallo Images/Rapport/Deon Raath
There is no point in getting angry about load shedding: sending your blood pressure soaring is not going to make our corrupt and inept ANC elite do anything about sorting out Eskom… perhaps because they have too much to lose.
Eskom itself has warned that the first three months of 2023 will be difficult. We wonder about their definition of difficult, if they believe what we have been through in the past few months is a walk in the park.
ALSO READ: Permanent stage 4 load shedding in 2023 a possibility
Independent experts agree that the power situation is bleak and that it is probable we will not be free of load shedding at all next year – with the average likely to be stage 4… with possible bouts of stage 10, or even grid collapse.
How naïve we were to believe that Cyril Ramaphosa’s “New Dawn” of 2018 would bring our state-owned enterprises – and particularly Eskom – back to life because it was dismantling the machinery of state capture.
One set of crooks exits stage right; a new set of crooks enters stage left…
South Africa could have been better off – although not completely stable – in terms of electricity supply, if the ANC government had not been deliberately dragging its heels over granting permissions for renewable energy projects, which would have provided support to the national grid.
Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has often been looked at as the villain in this scenario because he has been front and centre hampering alternative supply sources, while banging the coal drum and clearly
pushing the “temporary” alternative of “powerships”.
Yet, let’s not kid ourselves – Mantashe would not say, or do, anything which has not been approved by the ANC collective.
There must be something lucrative in it for them to allow the status quo to continue. A point to ponder ahead of the 2024 general election…
NOW READ: Good riddance or good grief? – De Ruyter’s gone, so what happens now?
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