Soon we’ll have to sell our kidneys to afford Eskom’s price hikes

If we’re to be honest, energy prices around the world are becoming an issue.

Even the UK’s current buzz phrase of choice, outside of the royal family is “cost of living crisis”. As good as it feels not to be alone in this mess, it feels pretty awful to know it could have all been avoided.

Andre de Loadshedding has hardly given us much to be hopeful for.

Eskom’s two massive new plants took much longer than planned to construct and, despite being madly over budget, have already started breaking down. Oh, and lest we forget, Koeberg’s licence is expected to expire in two years and I’m not sure I’m confident in Eskom’s ability to refurbish the only nuclear plant on the continent.

In short, this means we’re going to be buying a lot of diesel.

I keep hearing about these good stories we have to tell. It seems more like the stories have already been told and we’ve been so happy telling stories, we’ve not done much to inspire the next season.

What’s the good story here?

More people have access to the non-functional grid? More people have access to electricity they can’t afford? More people have jobs at the national power utility while it continues to fail? I don’t get it.

A really good story to tell would have been how South Africa kept the lights on while the UK started to go dark. A good story to tell would have been how the increased workforce at Eskom raised efficiency and kept prices down.

Also Read: Nersa has very little room to limit Eskom’s proposed 32% tariff hike

What we have are not good stories. They’re the ugly reality of a nation run by people who couldn’t be bothered.

The problem is, what’s to stop it?

We’re forced to act like a 32% increase is cool. If you get it, we suffer. If you don’t get it, you suffer and in turn, we suffer still.

At least with the SAA bailouts there was an attempt at setting conditions, but with Eskom?

“Naaah! Just give us the cash so we can keep going like we’re going.”

Fire Andre, don’t fire Andre. I don’t really care.

All I want is for some light at the end of the tunnel. If you’re asking me for 32% more, tell me what I’m getting for that. Am I getting another 100 days of load shedding? Am I getting less? Are we going to keep relying on diesel, and do we have a maintenance plan for the country’s plant infrastructure?

It’s a big difference. Many of us will take the 32% hit if it means no increases for year and fixing the load shedding problem, but we know that’s not the case.

We’ve been hit with increase after increase and there’s nothing to show for it save for maybe avoiding stage 16. That’s hardly a thing to celebrate.

I guess this is now in the hands of the regulator NERSA, but I can tell you for free what’s going to happen.

They’ll approve an increase. Perhaps not 32%, but certainly something close.

From there, prices will go up even if they don’t have to, and some overpaid spokesperson at a power utility is going to pass the buck saying, NERSA approved it so we can do it.

I think we need to take a look at Eskom and make some demands of our own. If you want your increase, you’re going to have to deliver. Not that seems like it will happen.