LETTER: Small businesses in the dark as politicians fiddle

As calls on the government to expedite energy generation from independent producers increase, politicians are having a field day with their conjecture. At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos finance minister Enoch Godongwana said the target to eradicate load-shedding is 12-18 months.

Meanwhile, minerals resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe claimed that there’s excess electricity idling in the system. Mantashe further said it will take six to 12 months to address rolling blackouts if Eskom pays attention to the problem. However, the so-called experts dismiss his claims as outright lies.

In the midst of all this imagine the plight of Koko Modipadi from Sekabing in Limpopo. She started a café after serving as a domestic worker for 35 years, which is now operating at a loss due to never-ending power interruptions. She’ll also have to contend with the looming electricity tariff increase and pay for a gas cooker and fuel to keep the business running during load-shedding. That’s beside some economic activities in her community having collapsed as a consequence of damaged electrical equipment. Yet promises are recycled into platitudes with no end in sight.

In March 2019, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said Eskom would overcome the electricity crisis within two years. But the blackouts have only escalated, exposing Gordhan’s vacuity of ideas to arrest the root cause of the crisis. Outgoing Eskom CEO André de Ruyter couldn’t account for putting the country under the worst stages of load-shedding in history.

In July 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a 10-point crisis plan to be implemented over two years. Still De Ruyter couldn’t pull it off. No number of red herrings will gloss over such ineptitude. Even the blame-shifting narrative of “nine wasted years” won’t wash. Load-shedding has decimated most of SA’s socioeconomic transformation milestones.

Morgan Phaahla
Ekurhuleni

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