2 posts tagged “jacob maroga”
South Africa's state-owned power utility, Eskom, has made some rather bizarre moves and comments lately. For one thing, Andrew Etzinger, its general manager for resources and investment strategies, is reported as saying: “There has been no load shedding since last Monday — mainly thanks to divine intervention.”
Comforting words. Roughly translated, it means: "We don't know what we are doing, and the fact that there have been no rolling blackouts since last Monday has nothing to do with our abilities as a power supplier. We simply don't know why everything is working as it should at the moment."
The utility has created a new unit within its executive management structure. The name of the unit, "Confidence Building and Communication”, sounds eerily like something out of George Orwell's novel, 1984, doesn't it?
But the comedie-noire does not stop there, and while Eskom does some pretty strange things, it is not alone. According to one report:
A desperate effort late last year by Eskom to hire skilled engineers and technicians to head off the looming power crisis was badly hobbled by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), which stepped in to prevent the utility from hiring foreigners without its consent.
The NIA wrote to Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga in November to warn him that Eskom’s facilities were national key points and that the presence of foreigners at them was a threat to national security.
So the presence of foreigners might compromise Eskom's ability to supply power to the country? Surely Eskom has proved it doesn't need foreigners to do that!
Certainly there is an increasing shortage of locals to help out. Another report indicates that 300 qualified engineers are leaving South Africa every year:
Large numbers of highly skilled South Africans, including engineers, are considering leaving the country in the wake of Eskom power debacle.
This has been confirmed by a variety of sources, including estate agents, removal companies and emigration consultants.
So if Eskom cannot find local engineers, and it can't hire foreign ones, what now?
It is no wonder that Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin says that South Africans can expect tight energy supply for another four years. Personally, I think that given the circumstances, the man is an optimist of note. Or perhaps "four years" is the new Orwellian term for "an indefinite period".
The Sunday Times this weekend listed the names of those guilty of plunging the country into darkness.
It said:
THESE are the people to blame for plunging South Africa into darkness.
President Thabo Mbeki, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin and former Eskom chief executive Thulani Gcabashe and his successor, Jacob Maroga, ignored the signs of impending disaster for 10 years.
Not only did the government refuse to invest in new power stations in 1998, but ministers went into denial whenever they were warned.
The newspaper points out, among other things:
According to the White Paper on the Energy Policy of SA, approved by the Cabinet in 1998, Eskom warned that its surplus capacity would be fully used by 2007. The paper, signed by Penuell Maduna, who was then the Minerals and Energy Minister, advised ensuring that “the electricity needs of the next decade are met”. But Maduna was replaced by Mlambo-Ngcuka — who insisted there was no looming crisis. In 2003 she went as far as saying she had been assured by Gcabashe that South Africa would never run out of power.
Not only that, but Alec Erwin, who just has to be another candidate for South Africa's own Comical Ali, has to shoulder much of the blame.
Shortly after the series of power failures in the Western Cape in 2005, Erwin assured Parliament that there was “no national energy crisis”. In 2006 Erwin blamed “sabotage” for a crisis that hit Cape Town’s Koeberg nuclear power station.
This is the same Erwin who last week said the government was willing to "share" some of the blame!
Of course, the electorate will simply vote the ANC into power again and again and again, even though in any rational country this kind of thing would topple a government.
The Sunday Times article can be read here.
