December 2018 was a seamless festive month as Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan took the public to his confidence, via an emergency conference, by announcing that there won’t be any power outages over the festive season under his watch. This served as a stern warning to senior management and executives at the country’s power utility, Eskom, to attend to all pressing concerns over the distribution of power to the people.

Eisan, Eishkom so it has been akin as a result of loadshedding, which is meant to keep the power output distributed in check and regulated off the grid.

1. Corruption and its ugly head at SOEs.

The advent of the term ‘state capture’ has put the spotlight on some individuals or groups of people and their relations to the state as having an undue influence on the finances and key decision-making processes in the running of key government departments. State owned enterprises (SOEs) such as the passenger rail agency of South Africa (Prasa), South African Airways (SAA), South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and energy regulator and utility Eskom are a few that have been tarnished and implicated in state-capture which has seen a reported bill of around millions to billions of Rands being lost and unaccounted for. Most even run at a loss without generating any revenue. Year in and out most of these state owned enterprises receive significant bail-outs from the Treasury to aid them recover and to keep them operational. Board members are changed and often resign at an alarming rate with many, other questionable so-called stratergic appointments made which often results in a lack of accountability, continuity and ineffective management of these SOEs. It is on the basis on the reported mismanagement at these SOEs that an inquiry looking into state capture and it’s influence was set up by national government, headed by Judge Zondo, which is currently underway.

2. Delays and poor workmanship at Kusile and Medupi.

It has been widely reported that the power plants meant to assist in supplying the national grid namely Kusile and Medupi are behind schedule and that there has been poor engineering design and workmanship that has been attributed to the delays that continues to affect Eskom in its strides to keep our lights on. Reports also seem to suggest that sabotage is the probable cause for load shedding at Eskom, coupled with incorrect usage of the right sources into power suppliers.

3. The results of the ‘free electricity’ promise.

A number of people from the township will easily use the fact that they were promised free ele trivity during election campaigns by various political parties as part of the benefits of freedom in the new South Africa. The recklessness of these political parties in chanting statements that seem practically impossible to implement to lure millions who needs electricity as part of their day to day living requirements should be called out as one of the reasons behind driving people to make use of alternative arrangements, often illegal, in order to access electricity in their homes.

4. Who to pint point the blame to?

A number of residents, bulk of which come from townships such as Soweto, Alexandra and Ivory Park to mention only a few, are not paying for theie electricity. Illegal connections of electricity are rampant in our society which also adds on to the electricity woes that the power utility needs to deal with. Financial difficulties are also affecting Eskom in its plight to fork out its bill for the high costs of coal and producing electricity to the public. Add this with the reported mismanagement and corruption that has high financial repurcursions to the overall bill, it gets one wondering who is the real person (people) responsible for load shedding? Is it the refusal or inability of households to pay and afford electricity or alleged corruption (on all its scales) happening at Eskom (and the state through its involvement) to blame? There are widely published reports available on the actual cost each of these accounts for.

The replacement of electricity boxes in most townships is a current occurance as Eskom attempts to right the many wrongs of the past. My question thus becomes, when clients are fined for illegal electricity connections and a new meter box is installed, what happens to the overall historical debt accumulated? If Eskom is battling as it is with capacity generation and distribution, affecting big businesses from getting electricity, how confident is it to be able to take the public (or investors) into its confidence over the matter of providing electricity going forward?

5. Way forward.

During his state of the nation address earlier this year, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced government’s new strategy to unbundle the state utility from one main collective unit to three separate divisions namely: generation, transmission and distribution (all under Eskom Holdings) as a way forward towards addressing the growing electricity concerns. Whether or not this will solve the balance sheet of the power utility remains to be seen. The federation unions are still up in arms over the unbundling matter as they view it as a method to reduce the workforce. They are also furious as this decision was taken without their involvement or consultation even though they form party of the tripartite alliance with the tilling party in government.

• What remains to be addressed is the township historical debt and way forward. How will that be addresses, will it be cleared and if so, by who and how?
• How will Eskom ensure that those not refusing to pay for electricity are dealt with accordingly?
• Or those who simply can’t honestly afford electricity are identified and dealt with on a different strategy? What will that strategy be, monitored, corrupt-free and will it be effective in the long run? With the latest Nersa approved electricity tarrif hike, how will the poor be accommodated and is the hike even warranted?
• How will the Eskom officials identified to be involved in corruption, irregular appointments, sabotage and mismanagement across all spheres be dealt with to account? We shall wait with baited breaths for the outcome of the Zondo Commission, it’s findings and recommendations. This will be one way of dealing with the electricity woes.

The future also calls for alternative sources of power, including renewable energy, to be looked into and I think this is a good way to start. Allowing research into the various pros and cons with cost implications into alternative energy sources are required in order to get to a solution that will benefit all South Africans, businesses and investors.