An interesting article in yesterdays "Sunday Times", for you international guys, a local Sunday paper. It discusses the Eskom "powerless" issue, but in a new, yet conspiratory light. it's not without merit though.
In Feb/Mar/Apr (not sure when) this year, the executive team from Eskom were paid in excess of ZAR10m in Performance bonuses! This during a period of blackouts which has cost the economy billions in lost production / sales / salaries, and has probably been the cause of more than one death (including but not limited to )- directly due to traffic accidents (traffic lights not working) and indirectly support equipment available when required, and even one case I know of where some people died due to inhalation of gases / fumes from their generator they were using for power!
Now the article said they were paid bonuses for their performance last year. Ok, that makes sense, however, their bonus is paid on performance, and how this was achieved was the main topic of discussion.
It has been brought to our attention the fact that these very executives were responsible for the orders to cut back on expenses - no problem here- but this included / was mainly operational maintenance expenses! And herein lies the problem!!!
They then invested the saved moneys in a lucrative returns portfolio, which boosted the overall performance for the year of Eskom! This way they could ensure that they would make their performance targets, and get their bonuses!!!
But the rot does not stop here. There is now proof that the power we were "buying" from Mozambique, was being rerouted to Zimbabwe, as they were out of power, and had a bill of in excess of ZAR100m outstanding, so no one else was going to supply them! And, to motivate a) A massive financial boost from the government, and to give credence for their request to increase their tariffs by 60% (as they have asked for, and we await the commissions response) they initiated the so called "power shedding"!
it seems to have backfired somehow, as for the past 3 - 4 weeks (or has it been longer) we have had no power shedding. They claim it is because the businesses and residents have come to the arty with a 10% decrease in usage. We believe it's because they have started to cause more problems than it was initially calculated. It seems that most of the municipalities have older type switchgear. Being oil based, this has a work capacity of between 2 and 3 switches, and then the recommendation is for them to be switched off, the oil drained and cleaned out of it's carbon / or replaced, the contacts cleaned, and then refitted, a task with a turn around of between 3 and 7 days.
The nett effect is the continued power outages was that these substation switchgear were starting to blow up and burn out! Causing a knockdown effect of continued power outages in some big metropolitan areas, with massive negative economic impact. In fact, they had no way of ensuring that places like the airports, hospitals, and other critical installations would have access to power at any time!
In fact, we believe that with the inset of colder weather in the past 2 weeks, the residential power consumption would have gone up - the mentality of the current population is such that "If it's cold, turn on the heaters", and this should have led to increased power shedding, which it has not!
So, if the above facts are considered in conjunction with the real world situation, it very possible that the conspiracy theory as posted here is a possible reflection of the situation as factual!
Will keep tabs on this, and maybe even lend my support to any party wanting to investigate this further.
Salagatle!
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