The electricity-supply crisis that has South Africa’s economy in a mortal grip has been predicted for years. Though these pessimists had only basic arithmetic, elementary economics and common sense as qualifications, they can today claim vindication. That years of regular blackouts would be this country’s lot, however, was known both within and without Eskom since at least the mid-1990s. If our central planners had analysed things closely, assuming only moderate economic success post-1994, they could have foreseen this even in the 1980s. Doesn’t “power rationing” sound awfully communist?
In many ways, the crisis caught South Africans completely unprepared. In early January, I wrote a column dismissing low-wattage fluorescent light bulbs as an ineffectual and expensive eco-fetish, and that even if some people prefer them, governments should not force such a choice on consumers by doing something stupid like banning incandescents.
That column now appears spectacularly ill-timed. Even if the arguments remain valid (which they do), they’re rather beside the point now. I had not considered a catastrophic failure to meet electricity demand very likely. In short, I was too optimistic about the promises and competence of the government. I was naively willing to believe the repeated lies we were told by the Eskom fat cats and government bureaucrats that they had things under control.
The government failed its citizens in the most irresponsible, negligent and incompetent manner possible. Eskom directors got paid millions in “performance” bonuses. The shareholder that employs them — the government — seems to think telling the media now and again that there is no crisis constitutes due performance.
The shortage of electricity, even if it turns out to be mild in the long run, potentially has extremely grave consequences for economic growth, job creation, poverty reduction, price inflation, small-business survival and investor confidence both here and overseas. Everyone except the idiots who caused the crisis says so.
Yet nobody has been fired. Our politicians didn’t even feel it necessary to shift the blame by some token dismissals of powerless and innocent underlings. They seem to think that saying sorry will make everything alright.
They feel they can get away with sending out press releases such as this:
As part of the nationwide effort to tackle the country’s electricity shortage the ANC will mobilise every ANC minister, deputy minister, member of Parliament, member of a provincial legislature, councillor, organiser, member and supporter behind this effort.
This follows the decision of the ANC national executive committee lekgotla last week to make this response a centrepiece of the movement’s mass work for 2008.
The NWC was briefed by Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica on government’s urgent and extensive response to the current electricity situation. It noted that the success of this programme in dramatically improving energy efficiency will depend on the contribution of all South Africans and all sectors.
Why weren’t they behind the effort to prevent the shortage? What did they get paid for all these years?
The meeting noted the massive investment already committed to significantly increasing generating capacity, but recognised that immediate action will need to be taken in improving energy efficiency to ensure the power remains on until the new generation capacity comes on line.
It is therefore critical that South Africans respond to the energy-saving proposals made by government, for industrial, commercial and residential consumers.
How can they blithely shift the responsibility and make this the problem of all South Africans, as if we did something to deserve this? How can we just bleat meekly and accept this? How can we just accept the necessity, brought upon us by government bungling, of having to invest fortunes (that some of us cannot afford) in low-power devices, solar water heaters and gas stoves? We’re going to have to do this anyway, but where is the outrage over the idiots that caused it? Why don’t the people demand that heads roll?
When California got hit by blackouts, the electorate revived an old and obscure measure that permitted them to revoke the mandate of an elected representative they felt had failed them. California’s governor, Gray Davis, became only the second state governor in the history of the United States to suffer a recall by popular vote. To add insult to injury, the reliably Democratic state of California replaced him with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is outrage.
Over at Moneyweb‘s sister publication, Politicsweb, James Myburgh makes a thoughtful case about the inevitability of the ANC majority, and what might bring about its collapse.
Myburgh compares and contrasts with the Indian National Congress (INC), which after liberation had a hold on the Indian electorate not unlike the dominant grip the African National Congress has here. The two parties also historically share strong socialist instincts. The INC was eventually unseated because “how can the people see Congressmen as other than office-seekers without scruple and office-holders without merit? How long can the party live on its capital?”
Likewise, Myburgh argues, the ANC government has, by several recent events, been exposed as both “without scruple” and “without merit”. “At some point the ANC’s hold upon its support is going to break. It is just a matter of when,” he concludes.
But then you hear moonstruck, positive-thinking delusions like those of journalism professor Guy Berger, and you despair for the future of this country.
Then you hear things like Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin telling us with a straight face that neither the current crisis nor longer-term electricity supply rationing, will harm our economy. I kid you not. The guy has an honours degree in economics from the University of Natal, Durban, so this leaves four options:
- Alec Erwin learnt nothing in economics lectures.
- The University of Natal, Durban, isn’t worth attending.
- Alec Erwin thinks the people the government lords it over are idiots.
- Alec Erwin is on crack.
There’s a good start. Fire the fellow. Please. There’s a bolt loose in his head. Maybe it’s sabotage. I’d recommend a brain scan, but that would be a waste of electricity at the taxpayer’s expense.
Then start going down the list:
- Jeff Radebe, Erwin’s predecessor, who was told umpteen times to expect a crisis and failed to act, in the vain hope that the government’s half-baked plan to establish independent, private power producers under severe price and market controls would somehow come off, and who failed to act when he saw that it didn’t.
- Jacob Maroga, current Eskom CEO, who joined Eskom in 1995. At the time of his appointment, Eskom was talking about a five-year, R150-billion expansion plan for generation capacity, and a supply shortage that would last until 2010 or 2011. Recently, Maroga casually mooted capex of R1,3-trillion (almost $200-billion) over 20 years, which amounts to raising annual capex by a factor of two-and-a-half after five years. For good measure, he added: “If there’s anybody to blame, I’m the first in line.” So, off with his head.
- Thulani Gcabashe, former Eskom CEO, still under multimillion-rand contract to Eskom to help with capital expansion plans. Not only did he fail to raise sufficiently loud alarms, but he also reportedly told then energy minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka that South Africa would never run out of power. Fire him, but make him repay his “performance” bonuses first.
- Mohammed Valli Moosa, chairman of the board of Eskom, and recently elected to the ANC’s national executive committee. He should go, along with financial director Bongani Nqwababa. The raft of well-paid but clearly superfluous non-executive directors might as well leave too: Mpho Makwana, Zee Cele, Wendy Lucas-Bull, Versha Mohanlal, Jacob Modise, Uhuru Nene, Errol Marshall, Lars Josefsson, Sintu Mpambani, Allen Morgan, Brian Count and Mustafa Bello. This includes only “major directorships”, whatever that may mean. What on earth are all these hordes being paid for? Heads. On spikes. The lot of them.
- Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, former minister of minerals and energy affairs, and current Deputy President. Received the 1998 White Paper on the Energy Policy of South Africa from her predecessor and directly contradicted its contents by insisting, apparently on the word of Thulani Gcabashe, that no crisis was looming.
- Buyelwa Sonjica, current Minister of Minerals and Energy, who had the temerity to tell a special parliamentary sitting that we shouldn’t focus on the past, looking for people to “crucify, crucify, crucify”, but look forward. “There is no need to panic about future investments,” she said, gainsaying every observer and economist outside the government and Eskom. But if she’s promising that this is the last time she’ll be telling citizens and businesses to buck up, shut up, write off sunk costs that assumed adequate electricity supply, and bear the cost of conserving energy, there’s a way to make sure of that. Since we’re going to have to do that anyway, we can modify her plan in one small respect. Add a new step one: off with her head.
- Thabo Mbeki, for being the Gray Davis of South Africa. As president, he most of all must take responsibility for the central planning policies that failed to avert the impending crisis in electricity supply, not to mention the simple fact that he repeatedly lied about it to the elected Parliament and to the people of South Africa.
If any of them had any honour, they’d resign. Failing that, here’s hoping that a no-confidence motion that will be tabled when Parliament reconvenes on February 12 2008 will give the ruling party the swift kick in the posterior it deserves. For heaven knows it’s true. Who could possibly have any confidence in a bunch of people that not only spent the past decade mismanaging the energy sector, but also proceeded to lie through their teeth about it while collecting massive performance bonuses for their efforts?
Excising the rot is the first step on the way to recovery. So if heads don’t roll over this catastrophe, what confidence can the people of South Africa have in anyone else in government, or their ability to address the crisis?
(This article was first posted on my own blog.)
Accountability at this time amounts to no more than government admitting mistakes, apologising, and requiring ‘the people’, not it, to make the necessary sacrifices.
It would be a mockery under democracy. In the upside-down world of monocracy, it is exactly what you would expect.
Ivo, to add further insult to injury, economist Mike Schüssler in yesterday’s Beeld in effect claims that Erwin lied when he told us that Eskom imports more electricity than it exports. That is only true because they export electricity at a huge discount, a lower price than even industrial users pay. The actual units of electricity we export exceed those we import, which would imply that we are buying dearly and selling cheaply. In effect, the South African (white) homeowner is not only subsidising industry, but the government’s racial kin all over Southern Africa to boot.
Thanks for the list, Ivo. They’ll none of them be missed. The sooner they are all cleared out the better.
You are not quite alone. For example, Dawie Roodt says: Heads Must Roll, at:
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A695547
And then there is this interesting letter:
Is Eskom doing an Enron on SA?
Andre Becker, Letters, Business Day, Johannesburg, 31 January 2008
I had a very troubling conversation with a relatively senior executive of Eskom recently, who told me there was no shortage of electrical supply at present, but an executive decision had been made at Eskom to contain supply to the minimum from January 14.
According to the executive, the Eskom execs were tired of fighting with the government about tariff increases and the funding of expansion and had decided to teach it a lesson and withdraw a percentage of the supply from the market.
Apparently, the lower than requested tariff increases combined with the funding costs of new facilities would have a severely negative effect on executive bonuses in the future, and this was regarded as unacceptable. I would like to clarify that this individual was not a disaffected white, but a senior manager of colour. He explained that in the past, executive bonuses were based on the amounts saved against budget, which led to a severe lack of maintenance and lack of skills. Any demands from the government to address these issues would have a negative effect on Eskom’s margins.
He expressed amazement that the public, and in particular the press, had not taken issue with the fact that the load-shedding started on January 14, when most businesses returned from leave, while there was no supply problem before the year-end holidays. He felt it was interesting that some facts seemed to be coming to light on programmes such as Carte Blanche, but the obvious questions were not being asked.
If this is true, then the Eskom executives’ actions amount to sabotage. As disturbing as these comments may be, I am reminded of the actions that Enron took in the US to increase energy demand and therefore prices.
I am not sure if this could be verified, but surely this could be devastating information?
Andre Becker
Springs
From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A695551
All the ANC politicians are electrical engineers and have private power plants? Mobilising them will create power?
Oh please No. This country has suffered enough under their attentions. Please don’t ask for more ‘effort’ from the same incompetents that got us here in the first place. Imagine the mess we will be in and the bonuses they will demand?
Rather they all go, with the white Bwana Erwin.
The advantage of heads rolling is that the next person putting his head on the block will think twice before lying.
When it is seen that the responsible posts are not the means for a quick buck for the incompetent, then many of ANC elite will seek safer pastures, like minister of funding birthday bashes for the ANC elite, or minister of weeding the garden. Naturally they will still demand huge salaries and still not perform.
Fascinating, Dominic. I hope Business Day’s reporters are all over that one. It sounds spectacularly juicy.
And Dawie Roodt deserves a medal. There’s a guy who thoroughly understands how economics works, and isn’t afraid to offend anyone by telling it like it is.
The electricity crisis raises serious concerns about the state of our democracy. To date I have not seen this raised fully. In a South Africa with a dominant ruling party that is unlikely to be unseated for a good while yet, the role of the opposition and ‘civil society’ is critical. What did the opposition parties in parliament do since the energy white paper was published ten years ago? While the ‘responsible’ government officials and Eskom executives are rightly at the forefront of criticism, what was the DA enery spokeperson doing. Did he/she read the white paper? What has he/she been doing the the past ten years. Isn’t it the job of the opposition to monitor government and hold them to account. Surely, tt is not just to wait for failure and then climb on the soapbox.
Furthermore, where were all the university ‘energy institutes’ and the NGOs? What have they been doing all this time? Surely, if the energy crisis
was so obvious, why were they not screaming from the rooftops.
For a proper functioning society, all levels should be active and involved. Clearly while goverment and the energy utility failed in their primary task, so have the so-called guardians of our democracy.
I believe that some government officials, ministers and Eskom executives should resign. But the DA energy spokeperson(s) should not be far behind.
sad to say Ivo, will any-one go? Perhaps a few gatvol whities to properly governd countries. I bet my Honda generator that all ESCOM’s directors and the CEO will get performance bonusses and the Loose Nut, his Excelency Uncle Alec will keep his job and fly all around the world to places with a reliable source of electricity, telling their business leaders South Africa is and remain a een honderd persent bakgat.. Ja nee.. one can only shake your head in disbelieve.
Dear Ivo
You hit the nail squarely on the head yet again!
Yes, it’s important to identify the culprits involved in the Eskom debacle. I should like to advance one more high profile name, even if he is a “holy cow”. It is Trevor Manuel, the Minister of Finance, that comes to mind. He is the second most powerful member of the Cabinet after Mbeki, and has the power to approve or refuse government spending, including that of the parastatals such as Eskom.
Manuel started his career as Minister of Finance on a very inauspicious note – not knowing what is meant by the elementary economic concept of the “market place”. Not a good beginning! But he has been given an easy ride and time to learn his trade during the long economic boom. He has now learned not to repeat his earlier faux pas in public and he also deftly avoided making statements about Eskom or the other fiascos, that could be used against him. Many naïve financial journalists would give him credit for the recent boom, but in truth we were riding on the coat-tails of a world economic boom.
The real test of the management skills at Eskom was when the problem became acute. Competent management would have implemented a contingency plan and good PR would have been used to keep the public informed. Instead all we got was lies, denials and blaming the economy and the consumer.
The incompetents that you list, richly deserve to be fired. It would be a good salutary lesson to other inept fools. Why won’t it happen? Because our Parliament is a sham, a rubber stamp for the ANC’s Politburo. The people in government, the Cabinet, the bureaucracy etc were not elected by the citizenry and it is obvious that they do not regard themselves as responsible to the voters, but only to the party that put them in the job – the ANC.
Alec Erwin, as the Minister in charge of Eskom, is an obvious candidate for a ritual dismissal. After all, he is an expendable “pale male”. He has shown more evidence of culpability than just the current episode with Eskom. There is also the unbelievable assault he made on others darkly hinting of sabotage when a bolt was found where it should not have been found – in the Koeberg nuclear power station.
I really cannot agree with you that “The University of Natal, Durban, isn’t worth attending” simply because Alec Erwin somehow slipped through the grading. In the days when I attended Natal U. (more or less at the same time as Alec, although I don’t recall him) it was a university of repute. Today under its new guise – the University of KwaZulu-Natal – it has, like many of our estwhile institutions that provided a high standard of education, fallen abysmally.
While we would expect and like to see a slew of resignations and culling in a functioning democracy, South Africa is not a functioning as such. Besides, getting rid of Mbeki and his cohorts would speed up the impending disaster – in a word, “Zuma”. The future under Zuma appears bleak; the man cannot even manage his own personal finances competently.
The Eskom crisis is not even the start the start of the crises that are engulfing us. We can look forward to more crumbling government services at all levels – central and provincial government, the municipalities and the parastatals such as Eskom, Rand Water and Telkom. Funds for maintenance of the infrastructure – for roads, water, sewage, health, education, justice, police … – have been diverted elsewhere.
Add to this, of course, is the problem of the declining agricultural output of this country because of the so-called “land re-distribution” policy.
We are all getting frantic about electrical power (and rightly so), but what about all the other rapidly degrading services? There is no doubt in my mind that SA, under ANC leadership (sic), is like a fast-sinking ship, nose down and taking on water exponentially. The band (you and I) plays on with a mix of little, less and zipall hope for the future of this country. It was always going to go this way. Period!
They’ll all more likely gather for a R93 000 dinner bill for the comrades to “celebrate” the wonderful accomplishment of tabling of the next energy budget.
I really admire you.I am afraid your are no longer
the favourite ‘bloger’ of ANC admirers and supporters because most posts appear to be from,
let us say ‘previously advantaged people’?
I appended this comment to MT’s piece, but it’s more appropriate here. Apologies, all, for the cross-post.
The fact that Alec Erwin is still there defies belief. What does a person need to do to get fired in this country? Oh I forgot… attempt to arrest a crook.
Mr Erwin should – as the Americans put it – be taken out back and bitch-slapped.
An incompetent, arrogant, deluded fool who specializes in giving the citizens of this country the middle finger.
We are told to stop whining and to work with the government in order to solve this problem, and I happen to agree with that sentiment. But lets have some accountability here. The good people of this country, who have an extraordinary resolve, would be more likely to respond positively if they witnessed some accountability.
And “sorry” is not accountability, it’s bullshit.
And “we’re a victim of our own success” is treating us like fools.
Yeah, yeah, so we all know that a bunch of crooks is governing this country and stuffing up the works. But, who are we? A handful of columnists and some odds and sods expressing their indignation in order to see their name in some kind of print. The many millions that vote for the Appointed National Criminals will keep on voting for that lot until your wee fingers dwindle on the keyboard. Nicholas Dekker, Gansbaai
Great post…Impotent rage is all that we all will ever be able to feel. Why the lack of accountability? Why no repercussions? It is incredible. All I can think is that this is African style democracy. It may look similar but it is waaay different; a new kind of baaskap where the colour of your skin can excuse anything at all. But more than that, like Zanu pf in Zim, when it is all completely down the drain there will still be a celebtration of freedom. weird innit?
Zimbabwe 2.0
The government made a mistake. It’s the government of the people and the elite of the people. The mistake is part of the inexperience of the new government and by extension the new citizens of the country. None of the governments constituency believe they would have done better – and so the realization is to buckle down and solve the crisis.
Wether this would have happened under the old regime is pointless debating.
Mbeki has under the circumstances done the right thing and simply apologized — what more can be done?
Please government – don’t try to make other excuses like — we are a victim of our own success. The truthful admission and apology is the honorable thing. In stating that is common for power supply problems in developing economies — we admit to having overlooked a common and obvious problem, and failed to do anything about something commonly known.
Rather just admit to having made a mistake and lets work to correct it —-
Brandon, I very much doubt it wouldn’t have happened under the old regime. If anything, they were even more national-socialist in their economic policy thinking.
That’s where the problem lies. Sure, would could have better central planning, with better central planners, but we’d still be subjecting ourselves to the risk of depending on the success of a single plan or a single planner, with nowhere to turn if they get it wrong.
The more we can begin to rely on multiple providers of services now monopolised by the government; providers who are motivated by the financial need to provide the service efficiently, and can respond to price signals to meet demand. This should happen wherever it is feasible; everywhere except for the few goods and services that are for technical reasons better provided collectively, or funded by the state.
That’s what more can be done. And that’s plenty more than just saying sorry and leaving the same incompetents simply to try again.
Because I’m sorry, but sorry doesn’t cut it.
Oh, I agree that this would likely have happened under the previous regime – that was really an incompetent one, subjecting our country to tri-partite investment in everything we did – three bus stops to every bus, three benches to every train, etc etc.
I also agree that more can be done. But the more lies in the future and not the past. The reason why this has happened can only be addressed by an apology and nothing more. Of course now we expect more to be done in the future, and we expect the government to REALIZE that it is inexperienced, and that bumbling forward without experience is going to destroy every noble objective. An honorable government will sit back and say – pushing on without experience is going to harm our people.
So we expect them to open their ears to inputs from everyone in the country and together using available expertise and experience regardless of race to solve the problem.
Still I disagree. It’s not about experience, except in the trivial case that experience shows what doesn’t work.
It’s about policy. No matter how experienced you are, the gamble on government service provision remains a gamble on a single plan without any alternatives should that plan not work for whatever reason, even if that reason is entirely independent of the experienced person leading the plan.
The problem is reliance on monopoly government service provision. Even if the government were very good at it (which is rare, but not unheard of), the risk remains high. There’s no alternative to benchmark against, no variety to choose from, and no backup plan if the monopoly plan somehow founders.
If all that can be done about the reason why this happened is an apology, what good is that to anyone? A change in thinking is required. A change in economic policy that relies on government only in the rare cases when there is no reasonable alternative. A policy that trusts government to lead, to protect human rights and property, and to enforce just laws, but that doesn’t make the people dependent on government for goods and services and economic growth. That way, to quote Friedrich Hayek, serfdom lies. And wasn’t the entire point of South Africa’s historic struggle to be liberated from serfdom?
@Brandon: Please tell us what you are smoking. A apology only? The ANC had a shadow government while in exile in Lusaka for years, telling the waiting populace through Radio Freedom (remember that)how they will fix up and sort out everything. sorry Brandon, blaming inexperience for the mess now is a bit rich. Do you recall the Shapiro cartoon in MG just after Mbeki came to power where he sat on a tractor puffing his pipe delivering houses / services ext to an awaiting populace calling him “Mr. Delivery”. How misrabely did they fail. The arrogance of the ANC since they came to power led to this and it is not the last happening. I was one of the young professionals wanting to help the new ANC in delivering services and houses (I am a town planner)and what did they do? Got rid of all able-bodied and well experienced whites, who all wanted to help and filled the jobs with their cronies. Big joke mate. The only place the government will go is to a more incompetent one, like the governments in Zambia, Tanzania and specifically in Nigeria. There, the governments are still in poundseats, the politicians make speeches and drive big black cars while doing nothing more. The populace have taken over service delivery with private iniciative, delivering water and removing sewerage for fees. Most houses have generators and the average citizen have no expectation that the government will ever successfully govern again. That Brandon is where RSA is heading. The country will not die and people will not all swim to Australia, the politicians will sit in Union Buildings, puffing pipes and driving big black Benzes and the people will continue regardless. Friends of mine, by the way are already importing small diesel driven generators from China. Smala units that sell for about R12 000 a piece and they have paid up orders of 2000, which is a consignment. We should indeed stop to wring our hands and accept Africa will never ever a successful operational government and do it ourselves. That is the only way to survive and go ahead.
I was addressing merely the issue of why there is no outrage!
The people cannot get angry with their government, which is an extension of them.
If the discussion evolves into the pro’s and con’s of government monopoly – well that becomes another sphere.
Any artificial interference in the normal interactions of people will create an imbalanced system – or a monopoly as you will. Normally people interact on the basis of selfishness – we will only have co-operation if such co-operation is mutually beneficial and this becomes the corner stone of “economic principle”.
Monopolies in all cases are designed to restrict the individual from benefiting , usually from a resource, and to legislate that benefits accrue to a special group – under many guises.
The more perceived value the resource has, the more inclined greedy individuals in government (all governments) will be co-coerced by dominant stake holders to reserve the resource for themselves.
Natural Resources, Telecomms, Energy are sectors especially susceptible to this problem.
@Brandon
Your explanation for the lack of outrage – ‘The people cannot get angry with their government, which is an extension of them’ – is well put. Here are two thoughts to go alongside it.
We can all guess, or venture opinions and preferences, but no one really knows whether there is a ‘lack of outrage’ among what politicians like to call ‘the people’ (or when they have no need to flatter them, ‘the masses’).
‘The people’ have had quite a lot to put up with – double-talk on Aids, denialism on crime, slow service delivery and the rest – and in the end ‘the people’ are only flesh and blood. Maybe ‘the people’ are no longer as relaxed as the ANC and its more vocal loyalists would have us believe.
But what counts here is not authenticity – ie whether ‘the people’ genuinely agree with government – but lack of mobilisation.
Real people cannot express themselves or know want they want until they see an alternative. Under monocracy, there isn’t one. That’s why an apology is the best you’re going to get.
Perhaps,
I must admit – the news of late has resembled the bad old apartheid demons of police firing at demonstrators. These scenes are becoming more frequent and run the risk of justifying the way that the demon dealt with dissent.
I am incensed by the power crisis, but realize that screaming and getting angry isn’t going to achieve anything — so no outrage, just plain old dispair.
And despair is useful how exactly?
In this reference let’s use an analogy — it’s more useful to take the long way down the mountain than trying to jump to the bottom.
How useful is forcing the government to give us power which it doesn’t have? rather channel our energy into provisioning our own alternative energies — inverters, batteries, rechargeable lamps, and solar panels and survive on that until the government can give us power.
It’s obvious that we have used it all up. China has grown at 11.4% pa with a 20% increase in electricity usage, and a 18% increase in generating capacity. There was a time when the global price of copper shot through the roof while China bought up every ounce of copper for the Electrical Generation expansion program it went through.
Even now they are on a threshold but they have kept pace with forseen demand.
We have a paltry 3 or 4% growth rate, our demand could not have increased beyond 6 or 7% of which about 4% can be attributed to an expansion in the number of consumers.
Despite all of this ;;; deh power haz gone, and you can pray and pray, but it ain’t coming back, so despair at the situation is useful in kicking my ass to provide power for myself.
@ Brandon
Beyond the power crisis and the contradictory facts and figures, spin, reassurances, optimism, pessimism, racism and all the rest, there appears for an increasing number to be a bit of a problem with management and government.
Have they got a point or should they all just keep on buying the batteries?
Brother Paul — this is Africa!
If there was no such problem, there would be no such power crisis.
Next we are looking at a fuel shortage. No foresight to tell the population — generators are not the solution – before millions of generators are sold. They wait for the sheep to buy the millions of generators, and then propose legislation to ban their use.
But how about capitalism at it’s best — reduce the amount of electricity you supply and increase price to cover the potential loss in income. So here is a novel African business concept, sell less for more!
My point is that there is NOTHING you will do about it! The crisis is so large that nobody can stop it’s spiral. A whole governement did not have the savvy to foresee the crisis, how much hope do you have of them managing the fall out of the crisis. Raw sewerage spilling into our waterways during power outages, large scale production losses to the tune of billions per day…these are what you see in the news.
Sit down and compile a scenario based disaster impact study flowing from the consequences of the power shortages, this will throw up issues as diverse as wildlife under threat from power outages, to wide ranging dispersion of biological pathogens throughout the food chain, locally and wherever our crops are exported to.
It’s fine if you want to engage in chastising the government over poor performance, the reality is that the scope of the disaster is so great, that the governement which could not forsee it, cannot even begin to comprehend the full scope of it and will not for decades be able to address the full rehabilitation of this disaster.
My focus now is on how to protect myself – emergency power provision, purifying tap water, in the short terms and a more detailed plan in the long term.
Go beat your drums outside the governments door, you’re wasting your time — there is nothing they can do now…
There’s a broader argument along those lines, that’s more accurate. No government has the foresight and capacity to manage an entire economy. That’s the real problem. In a free market, numerous companies operate competitively, many of them at very local level, and with very fine granularity, to solve problems and provide solutions. An uptick in generator sales will result in an imperceptible rise in demand for fuel, which will cause some (not all) fuel suppliers to raise their prices so they can offer their own suppliers more and maintain their reserves. Those who raise their prices survive, those who didn’t run dry. Unless, of course, they were wrong about predicting generator-related demand, in which case those who raised their prices lose business to those who didn’t.
This dynamic happens at all levels, from large-scale corporations to tiny one-man operations. Nobody has to have all the information about the entire economy at all times to make planning decisions. When market participants get it wrong, only a few people are affected, and even they have somewhere else to turn. You seldom have a situation where an entire country is dependent on the correct decision of a single planner, and in the rare case where that is true, it’s because the company in question has built up a tremendous track record and reputation for getting it right — so much so that few competitors can match it.
This doesn’t mean government planners are less capable than private sector “planners”. They’re not. It’s just that the private sector is far more fragmented, operates at far finer level of granularity, and benefits from an unencumbered price signal that conveys information to all parties about real cost, subjective benefit, and changing levels of demand and supply. It has the motive, and because of its decentralised nature, it has the capability, to survey customers, talk to them, and serve a varied range of requirements and even small, specialised niches, instead of having to offer a one-size-fits-all solution as a government does.
The point is that even the best-resourced, best-skilled and best-intended government, in principle, is less able to plan an economy (and does so at vastly higher risk), than the voluntary and spontaneous action of a large group of citizens, organising for their own individual benefit, in a free, varied and dynamic market, all over the country.
@Ivo
Looks like ESKOM may relent on their position of fixed rates for coal haulage. Thing is they gave the contracts to BEE contractors who dont even have trucks. They took a cut and passed the contract to other contractors who cant survive at this reduced tariff and go bankrupt.
They must either withdraw the BEE contracts and employ competent contractors, or put the price up so that the contractors can survive and the BEE parasites can take their cut.
Watch the price of coal go up now 15-30% as ESKOM chooses the latter option and the BEE blood suckers take their 15-30% skim. This of course means more expensive power, with all the ripple effects through the economy.
By the way, 7 new mines are planned for Zim when Bob disappears. Mass exodus from SA as mines choose to invest elsewhere. I think Zim will start booming. Meanwhile SA is sinking as fast as Zim went down. Its amazing how many contractors are moving their heavy equipemtn out of SA to other countries. You can barely find transport anymore.
I wonder what would be planned for SA if the ANC was shown the door.
That maybe a good blog for you. Call the heavy transporters and ask about where most of their business is going. In fact you can buy trucks in Zambia 40% cheaper than in SA, even though they are driven up from Durban. Its due to SA taxes.
This government needs a wake up call. They are running us into the ground at full throttle.
It is known theory that a free dynamic market is most beneficial. It is unlikely to ever be experienced anywhere on earth.
I think it is about time the media started educating us about the options available to us if the individuals we elect to power fail us. But more so I think we need more electronic news media and preferrable TV that is, to say the least, going to be non-partisan. To be honest I would not mind them being anti-government at this time. Not just the ANC but the whole government. I explain my point. Notice that the same people that were in opposition during the apartheid regime are now the same folks that are in opposition. Doesn’t that strike you as odd. Are these guys in opposition because it is fashionable to be so. Hold that thought. You see I would have not so long thought the comments by IVO are treasonous. This is how blindly passionate I was with the ANC. But it took the death of my parents recently in the failed health care systems led by the most incompetent government official to shake me off the extended honeymoon with the ANC, to realise the need for a revolution my friends have going on about for a long time now. Silly me, I have usually thought myself more informed than my friends because I read. The present regime is failing us all. John Minto is true. Power crises is one such example. The funny thing is I can remember during first democratic general election debates featuring the Sakkie Macozoma’s and Tito Mboweni’s pointing out how the country was going to flourish under the new leadership. I realise that the two and a few others have since flourished. John Minto is right. I remember the warnings of what was then the outgoing apartheid regime on high expectations on education, health care, energy and so on and the famous question was and I remember this as if it were “Maybe Sakkie, should tell the people how they intend financing all of these things.” Honestly I don’t remember what the responses were. Whatever they were I have been failed. But I need to see transferrence of the print media to electronic because for as long powerful words such as IVO’s are burried in the black ink lesser people will understand the failures of the present government and I’m not implying black don’t read. But a few factors go into getting IVO’S blog and others similar to it to most of my friends to them the continued unemployment has lead to their decision for a need for a revolution. Let me be the first to acknowledge that at times the media can have undue influence, look at the conservative media in the US, FOX News and Limbaurg talk shows in particurlar, how they making the Democratic race to be closer than what it really is, and even going out and saying Republicans should vote one candidate or the other. Well again that is beside the point. In my view we need to vote unconfidence in all of the government. I hope you now see how the present opposition cannot be trusted either. I think up until now the present regime and it’s machines has been allowed run free, we need a media that is going to help empower us hold them accountable.