South Africa: Eskom - the Terrorist Attack From Within

The battle for Eskom is the battle for South Africa.

Better put, Eskom is a metaphor for South Africa. It's a vast, unwieldy megalith entirely bankrupted by people who have treated it as a personal ATM and a political soccer field.

Stage four load shedding hit us on Monday like a wet cement towel that just managed to dry. Eskom is running on a prayer, and not one addressed to a deity familiar to this publication.

The world's largest power utility should serve as a point of pride, especially in a country that has more than enough human capital to run its various operations exactly as advertised.

Instead, Eskom is a state-owned zombie apocalypse: R440-billion in debt, money that is guaranteed by the sovereign, and unable to meet its rather simple mandate: keep the lights on, and the wheels of industry turning.

This is a disaster that threatens to blow out the entire economy, a terrorist attack on the fabric of this county perpetrated by the very people who have sworn to govern it responsibly, and (laugh no more) competently. Former president Jacob Zuma has been busy in retirement -- busier than he was during his two terms at the.

Comments

Facts The Economist Got Them Wrong on Magufuli

DAR ES SALAAM, East Africa: By Dr. Hernan Louise Verhofstadt* “ A BIT like President Donald Trump, Tanzania’s president, John Magufuli, likes to fire employees on television. In November Mr. Magufuli used a live broadcast from a small town in the north of the country summarily to dismiss two officials,” this is an extract from a recent online article I came across from the newspaper that I admired when I was growing up in Europe back in 1990’s; the Economist . Before I venture into other serious issues, the excerpts above contains gross factual errors; my own fact-check indicates that in the named public rally during the opening of Kagera Airport, there was no summary dismissal of the two officials instantly on television, as alleged. Instead, the two, one District Executive Directors for Bukoba Urban and another for Rural were relieved their duties later through a press release from President’s Office. This is my prima impressio reading the Econom...

Tundu Lissu, a despot in the shadow?

By Masinde Masondore, Montreal, Canada, 01-04-2018: WHEN a learned politician brags of publicly embarrassing his President and counts it an honor while deliberately sabotages the nation's economic interests is a misfit in African traditions. 'Africans have had own ways of criticising the King, the way it happened in ancient Israel, however, in any case, the nation's interests were set apart from any sabotage," Gilbert Moshi. Tindu Lissu, a controversial Tanzanian opposition politician would be leaning on a wrong wall. He chose a road less travelled by learned individuals who mostly were rational. The road he walks and the philosophy he exhibit, only label him a tyranny of darkness. Any democratic leader, whether in opposition or ruling party ought to be totally enveloped in wisdom which prevents monumental errors of judgment. Lissu does not exhibit a minute of it. One of the pillars of customer-focused policies in the business world i...

Magufuli Honours Promise As Dangote Factory Gets Direct Gas Supply

Production on of affordable cement now to start next month By Correspondents Dar and Nairobi, 15:16 GMT Under his famed “delivery per se” policy, the government of Tanzania under President John Pombe Magufuli has finally confirmed that it has completed its phase mission of connecting Dangote cement plant in Mtwara, in the southern region of Tanzania, to the natural gas to generate the needed 35MW. Mr. Aliko Dangote in a tete a tete with President Magufuli at the inaugaration of the plant last year. Speaking at the end of his tour of the factory, the Energy Minister Dr. Medard Kalemani said the government was committed to supply the natural gas resource to enable Dangote cement plant access affordable energy for smooth cement production. The factory is one of the biggest cement plants in Southern Africa providing affordable cement to locals and countries in the vicinity. “I am telling you TPDC, if the factory delays to complete its i...

Pan African News Hub

Search This Blog