LETTER: Skilled workers are leaving SA
Another knock-on effect of the Eskom crisis
Yes, we are all acutely aware of the damage being inflicted on the economy by the Eskom fiasco. And, yes, we know that it is destroying, perhaps irreparably, foreign confidence in SA — not to mention the resultant destruction of jobs and the increasing crime statistics. These knock-on effects have been well documented. Yet the greatest affliction of them all — an alarming depletion of the nation’s most prized asset — has yet to be recognised. Rolling and continuous blackouts are driving rare skills out of the darkness and into the light of foreign countries only too pleased to welcome them with open arms and huge pay packets. Updated statistics are not yet forthcoming but a straw poll of my friends and acquaintances points to a frightening number of their children emigrating to peaceful climes where the light switches generate what they promise and governments are unable to spell “corruption”. Sad but true. The ANC is ignoring the catastrophe at its peril, for it is such skills that...
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