A Mother of All Battles – coined by Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Persian Gulf War – is raging in South Africa. This aptly applies to our country currently.
But even a much more brutal war was fought following American and British suspicions of Iraq producing “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. It is this latter war that left Iraq in a state of instability two decades.
While that war destroyed all semblance of normality in Iraq, the tragedy was also comical and entertaining, with its lead actor who came to be known as “comical Ali”.
South Africa’s existential threat of a collapsed grid has several characters who play the role of comical Ali. They could pass for the best comedians except that like in the case of comical Ali, the situation is tragic.
The education of South African children, especially blacks, is receiving yet another serious blow since 1976. The economy is crippled not by sanctions of the apartheid-era, but by self-imposed sanctions by comedians who played with matches and the economy like a haystack is down in ruins under fire.
Here is the comedy, not of errors but one transformed into tragedy of the titanic heading and stuck in an iceberg, while the actors in this tragic comedy are assuring themselves through empty self-talk.
Last week on SABC’s “Morning Live”, Electricity Minister Sputla Remokgopa promised that by May 10, 2023, the president would make an announcement regarding the allocation of powers to his department.
The date has come and gone, with zilch powers allocated to the minister.
This is the new normal whereby a trend that we have come to be too familiar with as South Africans has emerged. The government officials make promises and come delivery time, nothing has been done as promised.
The crippling energy crisis of load shedding is winding down South Africa to an ultimate state of collapse, while officials like comical Ali just make empty promises and take we as citizens for granted.
The load shedding and power cuts are getting worse in the country and in communities. And these communities are taking matters into their own hands. For instance in Witbank last week, a key national road – the N4/N12 split – was closed due to a major protest prompted by higher than normal load shedding, power cuts and total blackouts.
This is what led to violent protests in which cars and trucks and police cars were set alight during the protest.
At the time of writing the community of KwaGuqa, in eMalahleni (Witbank) had been without electricity for a week while some areas experience 16 hours of load shedding a day. The community took to the streets to protest and demand that the municipality provide a better electricity supply.
The irony is that Witbank is home to some of the biggest and largest power stations in the country, but the community is without electricity most of the time.
eMalahleni is the coal mining hub of South Africa. Yet the community has no electricity and suffers higher than usual load shedding and power cuts. By the way Witbank or eMmalahleni is home to Dhuva and Kusile Kriel and Matla power stations and the Mpumalanga highveld is home to 12 of 15 Eskom power plants.
As if the circus has not ended, on Thursday in Parliament the president was at pains to clearly articulate the job description or mandate for the minister of electricity. The president was struggling with a balancing act of pleasing all the three ministers, and had to literally cut down all the key responsibilities of the electricity minister.
Like a skilful cat dividing cheese among three mice, ending up allocating two parts of the cheese to where they were vested: the Department of Mineral Resources and the Department of Public Enterprises, and the new mouse on the deck was left to lick the paws of the cat for whatever crumbs remained on them. His role is just project chores that lists roles and responsibilities.
The response of the president was highly calm and indicated no sense of urgency. The mood in Parliament was equally that of a group of tourists chilling and cruising along a private island sipping Piña coladas, Virginia mojitos and other exotic cocktails.
The jovial mood prevailing in Parliament while the country has been plunged into the worst stages of severe load shedding, blackouts and power cuts in the history of Eskom surpassed that of comical Ali, whose propaganda was loud on entertainment and crippled on the art of war.
But comical Ali seems to have created loyal disciples strong on rhetoric and weak on electricity. No doubt the question asked is: “What is the oversight role of Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa)?”
Andile Nchabeleng is president of Transform RSA and an independent energy expert.
BUSINESS REPORT