Clyde Mallinson says we will (and I think he is just extrapolating), De Ruyter says we won’t. It’s different people with different opinions. There is nothing surprising here really.
Mallinson probably has a reason to lean towards the more negative answer, while we know Eskom will lean towards the other end.
Remember also Budget speech is coming up. And with the declared state of emergency, a heap of money is going to be thrown at at, likely in the form of Diesel. I tend to think De Ruyter is correct here. We will probably not escalate to stage 8, at least not by June, and possibly not before next year.
In fact, I foresee a slight improvement after April.
But unless the fundamentals change, we will get there eventually. It all depends on the perspective of the person saying it.
This is one thing I’m a little worried about. I just hope they don’t go blowing the new financial year’s diesel budget to look good for a month or two and then winter.
The state of disaster (not emergency, right?) changes it like you said. They’ll get a lot more diesel to burn (I think they’re already getting treasury backed loans if I read correctly), but I’m hoping they use it to actually fast track adding (proper / long term) capacity rather than just burning more diesel.
Correct. Even the pandemic was only a state of disaster, not a state of emergency. A state of emergency is for more serious stuff, like being invaded by a foreign military or a meteor strike or things like that.
Indeed. I think that “more Diesel” is actually part of the answer. But in the long term it only works if you use the reprieve to fast-track maintenance, build more, and so on. I really hate to be this negative, but our head honchos don’t have a good track record. They will come to the end of it, point out that the Diesel is now finished, and shrug. I sincerely hope I am wrong, but for once I’m betting on this side. Tired of being wrong every time I’m all positive about things.
If we want to be a bit pragmatic about this, and realistic, money is not the problem here. Well it is but it isn’t…
Today, and yesterday and last year, we are not fixing and doing proper maintenance on the plant, oh no. There are other issues at play here and that has nothing to do with money. It’s got everything to do with ethics and work and doing the right thing. Money are not fixing any of this.
People and the right attitude and not being a criminal and not blaming someone else etc etc is what needs to fundamentally change. Without that change and that change includes the change in SAPS and DOJ to actually go and do investigative work and prosecute, that needs to change or nothing will change.
Look at them stats in SA, latest says 14.5% of murder cases and 10.3% of armed robbery cases solved. Foot where does that leave other crime and their investigations…
So in summary, because of the bad practises within Eskom, the current situation re maintenance or the lack thereof or just the poor work performed, will not change, no amount of monies added will change that.
In other words, Culture. You need a culture change.
In the Biblical story of the conquest of Canaan, there is an important point we tend to miss. They did more than just conquer. They replaced the culture. Ever read Psalm 104 and think… my goodness, that sounds like another ancient Ugaritic text (well, of course you don’t, because we’re not into ancient literature in that way, we’re into solar)… perfect example. Riding the clouds like a chariot was a borrowed concept. They took the culture, ripped out the bottom, installed something new… and off they went…
Anyway, I hope the culture change here will be less bloody than that. I’m in a weird mood today.
Now what is interesting, is if you take a stroll out into twitter land, and you peer into the backyard of our favourite “engineer” (Mr Koko), he shared video material of that interview, where he calls it “Explosive stuff”, and he doesn’t seem entirely opposed to the things revealed…
Interestingly though, since 2015 they had “been preparing plans to respond to a national or regional electricity grid failure”, it got really bad in 2022, especially the last quarter, and now 2023.
So yeah, methinks the “planning” just got more urgent.
Maybe there will be an upheaval at the ballot box? I cannot imagine that it will be business as usual. I am a little worried about where the chips is going to fall.
The ANC needs to lose 4% support. That is it. They lose that, and in 2024 we’re scrambling to make up a coalition government. And you should not necessarily exclude the posibility of a DA+ANC coalition. Politicans always say they will never do that, but when the opportunity presents, they are at least half likely to jump at it. I will also take that over the other coalition option, which involves even more people calling each other comrade.
Has not once worked in SA … so a very bad outcome.
All I’m hoping for is that SA will pull together as one, and say to each other “Let’s fix this!”, Eskom fiasco the “glue” to get us all to pull together.
Yeah, nah. We might end up chopping and changing presidents like we’re going with mayors. It all comes down to coalition agreements. They need to properly done.
I’ve got a feeling if we do go the coalition route that we’ll have someone trying to renege on the agreement, but I’m pretty sure that’ll end up in court before the good old vote of no confidence can take place.
But when was the last time we had one of those? Back when Smuts and the Sappe joined the Natte (in the 1920s)?
Of course that is a concern. Historically, it has been said that it was the downfall of the South African Party (the “Sappe”), because it destroyed trust from those who voted for that party.
Aaaah you’re talking about coalitions in local government. Of course perfectly valid data points. For some reason I thought only on a national level. The last time we had a coalition on a national level was over a hundred years ago
If it is big enough, it might. Let me bolster that with an example where it didn’t work, NMB (Nelson Mandela Bay). The DA was in power. Barely. The ANC then roped in a guy from the UDM, offered him the post of major if he sides with them. They managed to obtain a majority and kicked the DA out.
It failed because the majority (in both cases) were too marginal.
It also turns small parties into kingmakers.
But an ANC+EFF or even an ANC+DA coalition would be large enough that they are hard to unseat, and the second option avoids turning a smaller party (at 10%+, are they really still small?) into a kingmaker.
But it will likely erode the DA’s voter numbers in the long run.
