SA has been in the debilitating throes of loadshedding since 2008. It was problem long in the making as it’s common knowledge that Eskom warned the government of then president Thabo Mbeki of the need to increase generation capacity if power supply was to meet the needs of a then exponentially growing economy.
To his credit, Mbeki apologised for his role in plunging the country into darkness. However, when loadshedding started to be a lived reality of South Africans across all divides, Mbeki – running out of his allocated time in office – wouldn’t be part of the solution.
It meant it was left to his successor(s) to solve a problem that has turned out not only to be hampering economic growth but is pretty much threatening the goose that lays the golden egg.
Jacob Zuma came with his brand of a solution, which proved to be nothing more than just applying band aids to a gaping wound that clearly needed a more efficient and permanent solution. Today we are sitting on 14 years of loadshedding and counting.
It’s another man at the helm now, but no tangible evidence is offered for a solution. To say that Union Buildings has been a disappointment down the years in providing leadership around the issue at hand would be an understatement. Chief among its many failings has been procrastination, especially under President Cyril Ramaphosa, so much that the nation has lost faith in the government’s ability to solve the crisis.
His party, the ANC, has just emerged from its executive’s lekgotla where we were made to believe that the blackouts were top of the agenda. What emerged has done nothing to inspire confidence, in our books.
Yesterday, there was breaking news on TV screens announcing, wait for it, “A broad agreement on the need for a state of disaster.”
If indeed it needs a declaration of the state of disaster to solve the power mess, that should have been declared eons ago. Yes, skepticism and suspicion abound due to the comrades’ track record whenever red tape around state funds had to be cut to enable a telling response to any disaster facing the nation. For example, the looting around procurement of PPEs during the height of Covid-19 is still fresh in the memory.
However, that is no reason to let the power crisis deteriorate any further. What needs to be done, and urgently so, is to ensure that no looting takes place, and as much as a state of disaster legally allows for corners to be cut, transparency would go a long way in ensuring looters are kept at bay.
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