The people at the helm can and should be doing better

The rolling blackouts countrywide should leave a bitter taste in all our mouths because of our silence surrounding the drawing board that government and the electric utility keep going back to in attempts to resolve the crisis.

It should leave us with our heads bowed in shame because we are edging closer and closer to another SAA debacle. The country lives in a state of confusion as to when the lights will go on and off.

Any country needs rain for the agricultural sector, but we pray for minimal rain because of wet coal that may lead to blackouts… we live in a circus, minus the carnival lights, because this is South Africa.

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What should scare us though about the death of our electricity supply should be who is steering our ship back to the land of lights and consistent energy supply. We are in the middle of seasonal changes and my five-year-old is dependent on a nebuliser.

There’s a routine that we followed religiously, three times a day. But trying to keep to this schedule is impossible. Who is at the helm of this ship that has our health in their hands?

As the leadership of the Economic Freedom Fighters begins to speak of board resignations, a question then has to be asked about the competencies of the board. How much time do they reasonably require to get the power crisis resolved.

A lot has been said about CEO André de Ruyter’s ability to perform. The conversation has morphed from competency to a question of who are his handlers who have protected him from being relieved of his duties?

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Yet in this pool of chief executive officers that South Africa fishes from, who is capable of charting these waters. In conversation with a colleague, I realised that not only is South Africa starved of role models, but even worse we lack leaders whose integrity and independence can be confirmed.

I’m not saying there are faults in the current executives, but I am questioning their ability to adapt to changing times. The people at the helm can and should be doing better.