Kusile and Medupi power stations took more than two decades to complete and went over budget by hundreds of percent, becoming, in the process, some of the most expensive coal-fired plants erected in the history of humankind.
Picture: Michel Bega
We have a suggestion for the government and for the management at Eskom about what to do about the R1 billion mini-town built for staff for the massive, hugely expensive Kusile power plant in Mpumalanga: leave it exactly as it is… vandalised, decaying and overgrown with weeds and grass.
After all, it wouldn’t be difficult for you to do exactly what you have done with most other cases of gross negligence and corruption: simply turn your back and walk away as if it never existed.
But we want you to leave it as a living, non-breathing memorial to how wholesale looting has destroyed the promising future of a country which should be a leader not only in Africa, but also on the global stage.
We dream of a country where school pupils can tour a museum attached to this unused, costly white elephant and be told “this is what is was like in the past…”
Where visitors can marvel at the money which could have provided housing for tens of thousands of poor people but was squandered by those realising how easy it was to “eat”.
Because, let’s not kid ourselves, this ghost town is emblematic of our country and the fact that thieves and incompetents have put us on the road to being a failed state.
Kusile and Medupi power stations took more than two decades to complete and went over budget by hundreds of percent, becoming, in the process, some of the most expensive coal-fired plants erected in the history of humankind. And, even when completed, they were still not performing at optimum levels.
The silver lining to this cloud is that the failure of these power stations forced many to turn to renewable energy sooner than they might have otherwise.
And that is the real success story of power generation in South Africa.
