South Africa – The giant electricity supplier of South Africa Eskom is switching off the lights left and right to households and businesses. This process of load shedding hits both private and public sectors, and occurs at specific time schedules per day 7 days a week and has done since the new year of 2015 started.
By J.T. Jiyane
The most affected are business people, especially those who cannot afford to own generators with a big enough capacity to be able to operate the whole factory. To such an extent that, some of these businesses have closed down, because they are unable to meet the deadlines of their clients. Some such businesses were compelled to downsize their staff because of this problem they find themselves in, besides the millions of Rand being lost on a monthly basis.
Although President Jacob Zuma has told South Africans, in his State Of The Nation address last week 12 February 2015, that his government is going to boost Eskom by investing R 23 billion, this load shedding problem started way back when former President Thabo Mbeki was still in office, in 2007. Then Eskom told the administration of President Thabo Mbeki that it was experiencing maintenance problems due to its infrastructure which was aging, as a result of that, ESKOM infrastructure needs serious maintenance, but unfortunately such request fell on deaf ears, and was ignored.
Therefore, it is for this reason that South Africans find themselves in this predicament of being without electricity now and then. On top of that, most South Africans can no longer easily afford electricity because of tariffs which are sky rocketting, moreover, unemployment being the order of the day in South Africa is another factor. The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) is not providing a solution, but instead has become a problem because usually, it gives ESKOM a green light to increase tariffs. The moment NERSA makes a public calling to South Africans for comment about Eskom’s request to increase tariffs, is after NERSA has already made a final decision to increase Eskom’s tariffs. Thus almost every year Eskom’s tariffs are going higher.
The only solution for this load shedding is to ensure that the two newly built power stations i.e. Kusile in Mpumalanga Province and Medupe in Limpopo Province are completed as soon as possible, since they are long overdue. While Eskom’s spokesperson Mr. Khulu Phasiwe has been quoted saying; Eskom shall have to go to the bank and get a loan of about R3 billion. ‘Load shedding upsets everybody’ said MP and leader of Freedom Front Plus, the honourable Pieter Mulder.
J.T. Jiyane is a freelance correspondent based in South Africa covering politics and socio-economics.
