LETTER: ANC’s trade-off between votes and electricity

The country is in ruins and, notwithstanding the recent chimera of growth in GDP, we are entering a dark — literally dark — state of affairs. Electricity is a necessity for the country just to stay still, let alone grow. We can’t operate a household, let alone a serious country, with generators.

South Africans will have to learn to pay for what they get, and if they don’t pay …  they should not get. That is not the case in SA at present, at least as far as Eskom is concerned. Everyone gets electricity and millions, including whole municipalities, do not pay.

If I go into the local top-end car dealership and ask for a car worth R1m I must have the million bucks to hand over or a letter from a bank that is willing to pay the car guy on my behalf, knowing that there is a better than even chance I will pay the bank back over time, with interest. That’s a pretty basic fact anywhere you go.

Yet millions in SA are getting free electricity on the basis of promissory notes that they will continue to vote for the ANC government. That is, that they will continue propping up the most corrupt, incompetent, malignant government on the planet. The trade-off for the dire consequences of this in future is free electricity now.

Dr Peter Baker, Parktown North

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