I woke up at 3.20am in Johannesburg on Saturday morning. I stared at the darkness around me. I didn’t know whether it was load shedding or just deep darkness.
Every stage of load shedding, even during the day, has filled my being with an ever-deepening darkness and depression about the country that I so love. What I do know however is that I don’t want to live like this anymore.
I don’t want my fellow citizens and my children to live lives like this anymore. I have had enough. What I do know is that I don’t want a government that is intentionally allowing our energy systems to fail through its sheer incompetence.
In December 2018, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the appointment of the Eskom Sustainability Task Team to advise government on actions to resolve Eskom’s operational, structural and financial challenges.
This task team has had no impact on our growing energy crisis. In February 2019, the president appointed a Special Cabinet Committee, led by Deputy President David Mabuza, to deliver daily reports to him on the action needed to secure South Africa's energy supply. Again nothing has changed the trajectory of this crisis.
It has become worse. In December 2014, then president Jacob Zuma announced the appointment of then Deputy President Ramaphosa to oversee the turnaround of three state owned companies, i.e. Eskom, SAA and the SA Post Office.
We know the outcome of this task: all three SOEs are going through various stages of final collapse. Two things are clear – the inability of the current president to successfully turn around anything he is tasked with, and the overall looming bankruptcy of the South African State. All under his leadership.
Yet the president’s approval ratings remain high locally and globally. His popularity ratings across several indices are consistently higher than that of the ANC. Voters and investors alike see him as our last hope.
People however fail to see the disconnect between his popularity and his poor performance. He has failed so consistently to turn anything around.
He appears powerless to stop the work of his ministers who wish to deepen our reliance on coal. He has done nothing to bring rapid access to renewable energy systems. He has done nothing to stop the very real danger that our electricity grid is in a death spiral.
We are fiscally at risk. His inaction will open the door to the privatisation of our energy systems. The bad news of this privatisation drive is that over time we will pay more money for a privatised energy system.
When our energy system is sold to friends of the government, it will be the ultimate failure of a competent government. It is how good governments become syndicates, selling our silver to make profits for themselves and their friends.
I want a competent government. Not a syndicate. How is it possible that we, one of the most advanced economies with the largest academic and technical skills competence on the continent, cannot solve our energy crisis?
The ANC appears to no longer show any interest in competent governance. They appear to want a privatised energy supply chain using outdated coal systems or a Russian nuclear system as a revenue stream for their national and global associates.
This privatisation scheme comes straight from the oligarchs’ playbook where State assets are carved up and given to friends in a fire sale who then sell their services back to citizens at exorbitant prices. A few people – the oligarchs – will end up owning all the assets of our country.
When a president and his party cannot draw clear lines between country duty and their business interests, we have all the signs of an oligopoly – a state with limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of friends and their firms. There is no state public service anymore. Only money talks.
* Lorenzo A. Davids.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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