Let’s hope stage 6 load shedding shocked Ramaphosa

Let’s hope Cyril Ramaphosa was startled when he heard Eskom was introducing stage 6 load shedding.

It doesn’t take much to surprise him. We are accustomed to Ramaphosa being shocked about things he should have known.

Monday’s letter “from the desk of the president” is gobsmacking. The reassuring tone is out of touch with the reality that Eskom introduced the toughest rolling blackouts in its 96-year history.

The move forced mines to close, knocked the currency and created a media frenzy as folk scrambled to find the practical details of stage 6. Eskom in effect imposed an information blackout. Stage fright.

When he recently visited Medupi power station for the first time, Ramaphosa was “struck by how massive it is”. Doh. Shocked, surprised, struck, whatever. Never a dull moment when a sleepwalker stirs.

Medupi’s size could be one of the problems, as energy expert Chris Yelland said on Radio 702 yesterday. Huge installations come with huge problems, including cost and time over-runs. Boasting that Medupi is the world’s fourth largest of its kind is inappropriate right now.

We should be astonished it took so long for Ramaphosa to visit Medupi. Five years ago today he was appointed to oversee an Eskom turnaround. Epic fail.

He did not apply the late Helen Suzman’s motto, “go and see for yourself”. Perhaps he has not heard of the Toyota Way, principle number 12: “Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation.”

Of course, the ANC elite are too clever to learn from old Progs, or from the team behind the most successful vehicle brand in South Africa. The ANC elite always know better.

For example, ex-president Thabo Mbeki, in his infinite, pipe-smoking wisdom, over-ruled a 1998 White Paper on energy, in which government experts said there was an urgent need for new power stations.

In the intervening 21 years, botched attempts to catch-up with SA’s energy needs bear the hallmarks of ANC bungling and corruption. Deployed cadres cannot run any sizeable enterprise without messing up. They can scarcely run a bath.

SA Airways and the Passenger Rail Agency of SA, both under business rescue, are the tip of the iceberg. Eskom too is badly managed.

Wet coal is a feeble excuse, recycled for more than a decade without resolution. Lack of maintenance is part of cadre culture, as can be seen in every ANC-ruined municipality.

Solutions must include diversifying sources of energy (coal, solar, wind, gas, etc) and energy providers. We cannot allow incompetent Eskom to retain monopolistic control of the nation’s energy supply. No way.

Private companies should be permitted to compete more openly. And metros need to reaffirm their rights to produce and supply electricity. Joburg, for instance, would be far better off with trouble-free access to the Kelvin power station and any other source that offers supply.

Let’s not accept that this is the way the Third World doesn’t work. There is another, unused power source. It’s in your hands.

At every opportunity, vote out incompetent, corrupt people. Let people power take centre stage.

Martin Williams, DA councillor and former editor of The Citizen.

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