We’ll stay hopeful, but cynical, Eskom

You’ll forgive us, Eskom, if we don’t stop topping up the fuel in our generators, buying more candles and matches and sourcing less perishable food, following your announcement that load shedding officially came to an end late on Saturday night.

Apparently, the five generation units returned to the national grid since Friday morning has “positively shifted system performance”.

Along with that comes the news that one of the two transmission lines from Mozambique – which went down in the destruction of cyclone Idai – has been brought back on line … although the damage to the other is so severe it will take some time to repair.

Why we won’t be celebrating just yet, Eskom, is your comment that this new state of power may only mean a temporary halt to load shedding.

Based on past performance (or should that be non-performance?) we wouldn’t bet against a whole new set of “constraints” popping up to ruin the rest of the week for us. Still, while we have a bit of light, we can look on the bright side. Desmond Tutu once said: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

Thank you, Eskom, for making South Africa the most hopeful nation on Earth.

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