As I sit here on my laptop cursing Eskom I’m also reading about the situation between the gold producers and our wonderful electricity provider Eskom. This will be a bitch about Eskom post; I’ve finally got to that point. A friend jokingly said to me the other day that his view on electricity is that it’s a: “human right”. At first I considered him insane but more and more I’m wondering if he’s actually on to something there.
As I said earlier today in the news there are reports that Eskom and the big gold mines are negotiating a settlement whereby Eskom will provide uninterrupted power to the mines in exchange for these mines lowering their power usage by ten percent. The issue here is the ridiculous clause in that Eskom can’t actually provide uninterrupted power so they will inform the mines four hours before power will be cut off.
So this is the future huh?
Can you imagine building a new house in the next few years… Not only will you need to have a building inspector but also an Eskom employee who will negotiate how much power you can use. I can imagine the situation:
Eskom employee: “So what is the purpose of this building”
You: “Home office Sir”
Eskom employee: “So it would seem that you have four lights in this office. I’ll make you a deal: remove one lamp and we’ll tell you four hours before the power goes off so you can turn your expensive generator on. Deal?”
You: “Bastard!”
As we can see from the somewhat stylized attempt at humour above I have actually discovered the real reason behind load shedding. Eskom, being a government owned company is under directives from the head honchos above them to provide more jobs. With the insane amount of building going on and the amount of offices and homes being inhabited these days thousands upon thousands of new employees will be needed to go “police the power”. That is to say that those thousands of Eskom employees will need to be in constant contact with business and home owners negotiating power reductions in exchange for a more user friendly load shedding schedule. You see, what we face is not a power crisis but a massive employment drive and frankly that’s what the country needs. I’m really glad that we’re going to solve the employment problem and cut back on South Africa’s contribution to global warming.
Good job Eskom, you guys rock my world.
(the sarcasm ends here if you hadn’t noticed)
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