Editorial
Johannesburg - Speculation is reaching fever pitch our president will soon address us on the electricity crisis. In fact, he might even declare a state of emergency. Who knows?
It is no longer ironic, but rather profoundly worrying, that a man who appeared so often, so resolutely and so visibly during the pandemic that his addresses to the nation were dubbed “family meetings”, has yet to directly utter anything. Yet this is a crisis that has the potential to wreak worse and more lasting hardship on the nation than Covid-19 could.
What, some cynics might ask, is the purpose of declaring a state of emergency over Eskom? It might be precisely what the leadership of the embattled utility needs: carte blanche to do its job, attract the right people with skills and root out the corrupt patronage networks bleeding it dry.
Such a state might empower law enforcement agencies to find, arrest and prosecute the Eskom employees who have been engaged in acts of sabotage at the power stations to force management to give them increases or pander to the desires of the RET-istas who are hell-bent on resisting any change to the status quo.
It might strengthen the hands of the utility and municipalities trying to root out illegal connections and staunch cable theft. Declaring a state of emergency might finally throw open the doors to entrepreneurs to invest and develop renewable energy plants that can feed into the grid.
But this is South Africa. Given what happened with the PPE scandal, it could also open the sluice gates to unimaginable corruption.
You need to speak up, Mr President. You need to have a plan. We’ve run out of patience for platitudes. We’re fast running out of candles.
What more of an invitation do you need?