You can add another requirement:
Candidate must have a strong stomach that can withstand low amounts of cyanide.
…and “with future job prospects”
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In all this, I keep wondering: What happened to Phakamani Hadebe, the previous CEO of Eskom?
The story reads eerily similar. Very qualified candidate. History of not tolerating corruption (he had a former land bank CEO, Philemon Mohlahlane, sent to prison after he took over). The IMF even endorsed him. Collapsed at work twice in 2019. Resigned after 15 months because his health was affected.
It is unclear what his current age is, but he did his internship at the IMF in 1997, so he is probably middle to late 40s. Not the kind of guy who should be having health problems.
(Edit: He is 53, so he would have been 49 at the time).
And after that, silence. The forgotten CEO. Maybe he took early retirement, I would not be surprised. But at least in my book, if you’re going to make this thing about “race”, the simple truth is that an exceptionally qualified candidate that escapes the usual criticism failed in pretty much the exact same manner.
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Right, my gutfeel from a few years back, with fake news reported for 1 Apr, is actually happening …
The reinsurers balking, is quite important to note.
Methinks, one of these months, or years, there could be a total exclusion for all LS-related claims.
I’m not surprised. It is the kind of unprecedented event that is uninsurable. It’s like trying to take out life insurance when you’re already diagnosed with stage-3 cancer… nobody is going to underwrite that.
I personally know of two households where their house burnt to the ground and its suspected that load shedding caused some fault and a fire. I can definitely believe it because at work in our office we had load shedding and then when generator came on a multi plug with some sort of overload protection built in decided to blow and melted a hole through it, luckily there was someone to unplug everything. Insurers must be pulling their hair out
I can imagine that it will play a role. Inrush currents and the like. I am somewhat in two minds as to whether you can really blame load shedding for it. For sure, some aged equipment are more prone to failure when frequently power-cycled, but should the equipment not be blamed for it?
Also, I think we need to be clear about the scope. This is about cover for a total grid collapse. I think this in the same category as a pandemic. Many insurers had cover for a business interruption (Santam did, that was all over the news), the idea being that if a certain event caused the business to make no money for some length of time, you’d be covered. Then something unprecedented happened: The entire country’s businesses (or a very large number of them) stopped making money for several months. The insurers had to pay. Those who didn’t want to, ended up in court and also had to pay.
You think they are going to make that mistake again? 
As I’ve said before, one of my “benchmarks” is watching the short-term insurance industry, like now, with LS. Like with Covid and vaccines, I was watching the medical aids.
Yeah, about that. Just a different angle.
Pulled a plug out of the wall the other day, been there for yonks. Plug was “sticky”, eventually came out, looked at it … and went ice cold.
Opened it up, the wires already exposed inside, melted away.
I instantly knew why … let’s just say, it was “lesson time” for the entire family with the Master Dictatorial Degree on “WTF Not To Do” flaunted in full force.
Jinne, I lost it.
EDIT: I’m no saint, but geez man, some things are simply just not done!
And what did you learn, or deduce?
(If you don’t want to derail the thread you can answer to me privately too.)
I always felt that the primary goal of insurers was to insure themselves against insurance. Ever watch the film Memento? There’s a bit in there on insurers, very bleak.
It’s a betting game. I’m betting I’m going to crash that car one day. The insurer is betting it won’t be any time soon. Some clever guy with an actuarial degree works out a premium, such that the house always wins. The same with everything.
The insurer then reinsures himself with a larger insurer, essentially selling a part of the risk on. That is called “underwriting”.
Then a big event happens that the insurer wasn’t thinking of, and now it has to be worked into the new rules (because an insurer going bankcrupt is bad for everyone). He has a choice, he can either increase your premium, or exclude it from the cover.
(In the case of the KZN looting, Sasria priced it in, they had no choice).
Most contracts have clauses about what we do when the unthinkable happens. If you are renting a house from a landlord, and the house burns down, the contract typically says that the tenant has no claim against the landlord (other than paying back a deposit). If a war breaks out, your medical aid may well not want to cover you should you decide to enlist.
Exactly. More than that, I’m watching these guys with the actuarial science degrees. At university, you could literally get excused from any residence function by saying “I study actuarial science”. Those guys. They are the guys doing the math for medical aids and insurance funds.
Let’s be clear, there is a slight difference between the two. Medical aids are mutual funds without the goal of making a profit. Insurance on the other hand, is big profit for those who assume the risk.
That aside, that’s why you can bank on the insurance industry. They do the math. If they tell you a thing is (probably) safe, they are doing so with a heap of skin in the game.
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At the fund level yes, but the medical aid providers make their money on the administration of the fund
So not entirely a charity case, with that said, I take our private medical aid + private hospital system over many other systems that exist in the world (especially the US healthcare system that I had a brief interaction with once and was horrified)
Back to Eskom 
Personally I can’t wait for the final figures on the total import of PV + battery for 2023, I think its going to be a mind bending number when the dust settles.
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Ditto!!!
Sent Cattus a PM, but in essence, the medical aids calculated that the vaccines were the lesser of the two evils, for the Life insurers paid out record amounts at the time.
But a new thread in the weeds section if we want to go down this rabbit hole … this thread is about Eskom. 
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In other news, is there cyanide anywhere in SARS offices … seems to me Edward is speaking a wee bit “too openly” against his “employer”, like De Ruyter, yes?
That’s probably the best way to put it. We can argue about the numbers, but the mechanics and the probabilities are sorted. The simple truth is that when you inject a faux-infection, it is going to make that person a little sick. There is risk involved. Always. The thing is, in this case the math was actually fairly simple. Both coded for the same evil S-protein, one just had way less of it (they didn’t code the whole gene, and they didn’t code all the genes). The fact that there were adverse reactions is no surprise. The fact that people think the adverse reactions is limited to just one side (whichever one you choose) however is a little surprising.
But I always remind myself that risk = likelihood x severity. As man beings, we tend to react way harder to the severity of something than to the risk. Example: Nuclear power. Very low risk… pretty bad severity when it does go wrong. Planes: Low risk, high severity when it does go wrong. And another contentious one, Pitbull terriers: Likelihood is actually quite low (not even in the top 20 most aggressive dogs), but the severity is high (2 out of three humans killed by a dog is a pitbull). Stats be a harsh mistress.
So the Insurance companies is say that they will cut blackout insurance, but then eskom want to suddenly add 3000MW (2900MW) to the grid…
SA’s electricity crisis | 3,000MW to be added to grid by March | eNCA
Then both these guys are there to make (steal) monies. who of the evils do you trust?
Don’t know about insurers “stealing” monies, as they are very highly regulated, and audited.
Don’t know about the Gov NOT stealing.
He said Eskom had done everything possible to conclude the unbundling process.
“We have concluded an asset transfer agreement. We have set up the National Transmission Company of South Africa (Ltd). WE have set up separate balance sheets, income statements…so we’ve done everything in our power to enable the legal separation of our transmission business.”