Why I struggle to applaud Molefe and Eskom’s ‘achievements’

I’m no energy expert, but I still failed to feel much excitement today when Eskom told us about how South Africa’s electricity cup is now running over.

Apparently, we now have enough power-generation capacity to ensure there won’t be load shedding again until 2021. We’re also back to the good old days of being able to export power to neighbouring countries.

I suppose I should feel more grateful, because the energy parastatal has no doubt worked hard to stabilise its old and careworn grid, upgrade its systems and bring on new suppliers.

Medupi and Kusile, those black (as coal) holes that have been sucking up more billions than anyone dreamed possible, are also starting to carry their own weight a little more, with more units being synchronised and added to the grid.

So we have surplus power, and the acting Eskom CEO, Matshela Koko, made a big point at his press briefing on Tuesday to drive home the fact that it’s all thanks to the leadership of Brian Molefe, and that we should all be ever-so-grateful to the Saxonwold Shebeen’s most loyal patron.

OK, thanks. Every time I switch on my kitchen light now I’ll be reminded of a man who cried great big crocodile tears because the oh-so-nasty public protector had the temerity to look at his phone records and tell us all about his sweetheart deals to throw endless millions at his pals the Guptas to supply coal cheaply to one power station nearby just so they could charge a fortune to sell the same coal to another power station much further away … and bugger up the public road in between with all their trucks.

Molefe got rid of load shedding, and Madonsela got rid of Molefe – so all in all I should still be happy, right? But I’m not.

I may not be an expert on Eskom (first time around I actually typed ‘Eskon’ there accidentally … do Freudian slips happen on keyboards too?) – but my electrical engineer cousin from Witbank certainly is, and he always reminds me that industrial demand has been massively reduced in the wake of the load-shedding pandemonium.

He likes to point towards the horizon in the industrial and mining wasteland that is Witbank and ask: “Do you see that column of smoke rising up over there?”

“No,” I’ll tell him. “I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly,” he replies.

Imagine if a glove maker were to call a press conference and say: “For a number of years we have not been able to produce enough gloves for all the hands of all the people in our country. There just haven’t been enough gloves to go around for everyone.

“But now we have solved the problem by cutting off the hands of 20% of the population. In most cases, we just cut off one hand off each person, randomly chopping left and right hands to ensure a balance of supply.

“So now we have a surplus of gloves. We’d ask you to clap, but realise that may come across as insensitive.”

Eskom is not the only reason a number of businesses and factories have had to close down. Imports from China haven’t helped, but no one can argue that all our years of living on the edge of constant darkness didn’t hobble our economy even more pitifully than the “leadership” decisions of one Jacob Zuma. Today, where factories, businesses and jobs should have stood there is nothing, and that’s not even because of Eskom or Zuma – it’s because government was already warned in the 1990s (by Eskom) that we would run out of power in the mid-2000s, and they just ignored that ultimately accurate White Paper.

There were more pressing immediate needs, we have been told, than ensuring a constant supply of power in keeping with the growing demands of a newly liberated and optimistic country. And, of course, it’s difficult to declare the kinds of enormous profits Eskom was declaring for all those years – for their executives to then bounce home with all those fat bonuses – if they were expected to reinvest money into expensive and complicated new power stations and an upgraded grid.

Today, you and I are paying multiples more for power that mostly still comes from the same old dusty power stations we’ve always had and which are now providing a “surplus” because of all those thousands of industrialists who either lost their businesses or didn’t even start them.

Imagine if Elon Musk had been trying to build his Teslas here? Lol.

We’re today paying for the expensive catch-up project of a power utility that is still only thinking about its own bottom line. Even now, Eskom is fighting the beautiful mushrooming of cheaper, abundant renewable energy suppliers and trying to force through a ridiculous and expensive nuclear build project. It’s doing this not only because of all those Gupta and Zuma links – and ties to Russia – but because Eskom makes far more money out of big, traditional power stations, and can control all that money and where it goes.

With nuclear they’ll be checking in to Kickback Hotel every weekend, baby.

Then again, let’s look on the bright side. For the next four years, the light will always come on when I flick a switch, even though I’ll always think of Brian.

So come on Elon, how about a factory or two? We have some catching up to do.