By Lynn Harding
Cape Town - So much has been written about Eskom over the past months, weeks and days, that yet another letter seems superfluous but, I think a comment on the article by Nelvis Qekema, president of Azapo (Cape Times January 25) , is warranted.
Mr Qekema spends much of the article rubbishing the need for Eskom to raise the tariff, pointing out what we all already know – the disastrous effect this has on the population and business, along with continuous outages.
The arrogance of the governing party is breathtaking, particularly the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, with his ridiculous remarks.
I see this debacle started in 2001 with the decision not to invest in infrastructure development and maintenance, in line with the ANC’s GEAR policies.
Blaming Andre de Ruyter now is such a cheap trick and fools none but blind ANC supporters.
But Qekema gets to the real nub of the problem halfway through the article when he gets onto the subject of the endemic corruption rife throughout Eskom and its contractors.
His sentence: “Throwing more resources (cash) at a corrupt entity will not make the entity deliver better and reliable electricity but will only increase the pool of resources that will be available for looting”.
How on earth does a CEO get past this problem? I see the SIU has got involved quietly behind the scenes and there have been a few prosecutions, some resignations and retirements but very few.
They are fighting a losing battle. If only the darned politicians would keep their noses out of Eskom’s business and give top management free rein to clean out the entire operation.
However, I don’t see that ever happening as they have too vested an interest.
Several of them need to lose their jobs and retire into the wilderness with all their ill-gottens gains, but Cyril is totally hamstrung and owes so many of them for supporting him ...... it really is a circus!
If it wasn’t my beloved country under the whip I would laugh but I write with tears in my eyes.
Eskom has gone from top of the heap to bottom of the pit in just over 20 years. How’s that for a record, ANC?
Cape Times
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