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South Africa’s Continuing Power Cuts – The Result Of An Orgy Of Looting The State

South Africa is currently suffering rolling power blackouts and there’s no good indication when this will end. In fact, South Africans are being told that load shedding is just a fact of life and they’ll have to put up with it. Load shedding being, in the jargon, the statement that there’ll be no power for you today laddies.

How did it come to this? It’s a result of the massive and sustained looting of the State in recent years. No, really, there’s no other reason for this.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Power cuts are a fact of life, South Africans told[/perfectpullquote]

Suck it up Bubbas. But why is this happening?

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Rolling power cuts that are blighting South African business and bringing the country’s streets to a grinding halt may continue indefinitely, the minister responsible for the nation’s bankrupt power company has warned. Lengthy blackouts were imposed across Africa’s most industrialised economy for a sixth day as the demand for power outstripped supply. Pravin Gordhan, the public enterprise minister, admitted to “a huge struggle ahead of us to overcome this crisis”. [/perfectpullquote]

More of the what before we get to the why:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] I’m just going to rip off the bandaid here and cut to the chase. Loadshedding is very likely not going to stop anytime soon. In fact, Eskom will only be able to give us another update in 10-14 days, according to a report by TimesLive and multiple other media outlets that attended the briefing. This loadshedding update from Eskom means that you will experience those controlled, rolling blackouts we all hate for at least another two weeks, or possibly much longer. Mr Gordhan revealed that 10 to 12 engineers are travelling across South Africa to visit power stations and give their “independent view” of the situation and what needs to be done to fix the issues. [/perfectpullquote]

What we really need to know is why the issues exist:

The answer is here:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Imagine this unlikely caper. A cartel of 30 organised criminals manage to all get jobs at The Bank Of England with access to the vaults, co-incidentally, on the day Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa. Every single day each of them manages to smuggle out a gold ingot in their handbag, briefcase, gym bag or greatcoat. The security staff at the door are in on it too so they get away with this – stealing 30 gold bars between them every single working day of the year. Some of them are now reaching retirement and will have to fall out of the caper. They will not have managed to steal the equivalent amount of money stolen by crooked ANC government officials in South Africa during the five years of Jacob Zuma’s presidency. The theft of State assets amounted to R1.5-trillion (about £80 billion).[/perfectpullquote] [perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] And just like organised criminals, they’re killing the rats and moles. A New York Times investigation has discovered that more than 90 politicians have been killed (often by professional hit men) in the last three years in fights over “money, turf and power” as iconic state-owned brands fall apart, including South African Airways (SAA) and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) One of the hardest hit sectors is the electricity supply, which is run by a state-controlled company, Eskom. Mismanagement and looting have left Eskom billions of Rand in debt. It owes more than the country’s healthcare budget. The power utility company is on the verge of bankruptcy with debt in excess of R600 billion (£32 billion). As a consequence it has had to resort to a measure called “load shedding” in which it cuts the power to whole suburbs – sometimes whole cities – for hours at a time, every day, in order to ration the power it is able to generate. Because it has no money to repair its infrastructure, these planned power cuts are interleaved with blackouts due to equipment failure. [/perfectpullquote]

The money that should have been spent upon maintaining the infrastructure has been stolen instead. No, it’s not about race, it’s that the crooks gained political power. And that is the why, why Africa’s most industrialised society is rapidly becoming less so. Hands in the till, crooks in the Treasury.

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Matt Ryan
Matt Ryan
5 years ago

I assume this is the White man’s fault. Presumably because he repressed the Black man for so long he had no option but to steal everything in sight.

Rhoda Klapp
Rhoda Klapp
5 years ago

It’s nothing to do with race. It might just be a helluva lot to do with culture. Just look how well they get on in other..oops.

starfish
starfish
5 years ago

Well, I can’t see how anyone could have foreseen this

After all, it hasn’t happened anywhere else in post-colonial Africa

GR8M8S
GR8M8S
5 years ago

According to the World Bank the Gini went from 59.3 (1993) to 63 (2014). Poverty is down in line with the wider world.

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