I'm sitting in the comfort of my own home watching the rugby on television via my SKY satellite. It's dark outside so I've reached over and put the light on. It adds a certain warmth to the room. My fellow countrymen in South Africa cannot necessarily rely on a switch or a remote control yielding the usual outcome. Why? Because another part of the country's infrastructure is almost on its knees - the electricity grid.
Eish.
You see in reward for all their hard work and sacrifices during the struggle, the ANC has over the last 20 years awarded positions to individuals across the various parastatals who literally haven't a clue what they are doing. ESKOM is one such parastatal to suffer from the phenomenon known as "cadre deployment".
Critical attributes of your typical cadre are:
- You are a member of the ANC - that's a given
- You should have played some sort of role during the struggle, however small. (Throwing a piece of masonry at a police Kaspir counts - even if you missed)
- Being educated is a "nice-to-have"; a qualification from some far flung university in the former Soviet Union is perfect; this nails your Communist credentials and gives you the right to call everyone at the office "Comrade"
- You should have ZERO commercial experience; if you have had any sort of exposure to the industry in which the parastatal operates you will not be considered.
- At some point you will have lied about what's on your CV; if you can get away with applying the letters "Dr" before your first name, go for it!
The cadres have done an impressive job at ESKOM. I don't like swearing online, but only one word adequately describes the state it's in, and that is "F^&KED". Load shedding is now a term that most South Africans are now very familiar with. At first I thought it was something you did in the bog, but no - it's the technical term for a programme of rolling black-outs (one cadre tried to describe it as a "white-out" - go figure) that ESKOM have implemented in order to conserve the dwindling power generating capabilities of the utility.
Years of mismanagement and a lack of investment in the sector has seen ESKOM crumble. Of course electrifying parts of the country that previously went without is important, but it would be great if paying for the service went alongside delivery thereof. And of course if you get cut off for non payment, you just hook up to your neighbour's supply - problem solved!
The penny has now finally landed after 20 years of inaction and ESKOM is now frantically building two new power plants - badly it appears because both are over budget and well beyond their programmed opening dates. (Typical really of most government infrastructure delivery projects - something not necessarily confined to South Africa mind you.) Never fear though: the government is also striking a deal with those "peskie Russkies" (Zuma and Putin are tight) to build us a couple of new nuclear power stations to replace Koeberg (SA's ageing nuclear power station). Apparently the deal was struck in about five minutes - Chernobyl wasn't mentioned!
I am not sure what you get when you combine a cadre with a Russian built nuclear power station but something to do with a mushroom comes to mind!
Time to start digging out that fallout shelter people!
OUT :)