Ramaphosa is no hero for his ‘fix Eskom’ power plan

The “Stockholm Syndrome” – which describes the feelings of trust or affection by kidnapped people for their captors – could explain why some South Africans are pleased about President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plan to assemble all his horses and all his men to put the broken Eskom Humpty Dumpty together again.

All we really want, after years of battering by load shedding, is to have some kind of assurance that things are going to get better and that, one day, we will have round-the-clock electricity like normal countries.

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So we tend to look past the fact that this entire catastrophe was brought upon us by Ramaphosa’s party … from Thabo Mbeki delaying the construction of badly needed power stations back in the ’90s to the looting and incompetence within Eskom, which got into high gear during the state capture era of Jacob Zuma.

Many of the measures announced by Ramaphosa on Monday should have been put into operation years ago.

The ANC, remember, put all sorts of red tape and obstacles in the way of renewable energy – so Ramaphosa must not try to play hero now that those restrictions have been eased because of the crisis.

While the plan seems to be thorough and will put us on a better power supply course, there are still some worrying aspects.

For instance, the “mobile” power generators Ramaphosa referred to – could this be Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe’s pet project, the Karpowership offshore power plants?

And what else is behind his fanatical determination not to let go of that “solution”?

Also, how much more environmental damage can we expect now that the rules about impact studies will be relaxed in areas of “low or medium sensitivity”?

However, one of the best aspects of the plan is the reality: how can things get worse?