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With the Eskom debacle getting deeper and deeper into the ever decreasing spiral of self-destruction, the ANC has missed the boat. Last year, Deputy President, Cyril Ramaphosa was appointed to oversee the turn-around of Eskom among other things. This could have been the biggest blessing and opportunity for the ANC to prove to the citizens of this country and the world that they were capable of dealing with a national crisis, especially one of this magnitude. But, alas, they failed to see the writing on the wall.
Late last year, the government appointed a new CEO for Eskom, Tshediso Matona. On the 12th December 2014, he made the now famous comment “there is no crisis at Eskom”, adding that the way Eskom gets reported on creates the perception of a crisis. Even a child in primary school could see through that lie. Today, this very same CEO is singing a different hymn, I wonder what happened? Maybe he had cold turkey on Christmas day.
If Eskom and Ramaphosa had invited the private sector to sit down and develop a strategic plan to rescue what they can from the ashes Eskom finds itself in, things could have been a lot different. The government could have issued a directive that no employee or contractor working for Eskom or any of its affiliates, be allowed to take leave over the December period, every contractor that works for Eskom must have a full complement of staff on site 24 hours a day until they have both Khusile and Medupi power stations closer to commissioning. This would have been of national importance, and I think everybody would have chipped in to assist. But the government failed to see the importance of this.
It does not help blaming the lack of maintenance now; that was a forgone conclusion a few years ago, and nothing was done about it. We are in a hole, and when you are in a hole, the best way out, is to stop digging. Eskom and the government need to call on all the available resources and skills in this country, even if this flies in the face of some of its policies, to get it out of this predicament it finds itself in. What needs to be done, needs to be done. If the government’s policy is to continue filling positions with cadres, family, friends and incompetent people into posts that require expertise to run, then the road to self-destruction runs parallel to this current road, but the cliffs edge is closer that they think.
This government must take a good look at the destructive path it has chosen to travel and try and remedy it. Most government ministers and officials appear to be self-centered and only there to serve themselves, self-enrichment, not there for the citizens of the country
A lot of people have discussed the topic of the “Dunning-Kruger” effect which is a cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Conversely, highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.
The Phoenix tried to rise from the ashes of Eskom, but in this case, it was killed when it lifted its weary head.
