Another day, another load shedding schedule to consider.

Yesterday we actually hit stage four, and today, as things stand, we’re dabbling in stage three.

Given that we know stage two load shedding costs our economy a cool R2 billion per day, these are worrying times.

You’ll read much fearmongering and anger in the days and weeks to come, but the Daily Maverick’s article, which calls Eskom “the terrorist attack from within”, hits the nail on the head.

It kicks off with a bang:

The battle for Eskom is the battle for South Africa.

Better put, Eskom is a metaphor for South Africa. It’s a vast, unwieldy megalith entirely bankrupted by people who have treated it as a personal ATM and a political soccer field…

Eskom is running on a prayer, and not one addressed to a deity familiar to this publication. The world’s largest power utility should serve as a point of pride, especially in a country that has more than enough human capital to run its various operations exactly as advertised. Instead, Eskom is a state-owned zombie apocalypse: R440-billion in debt…

This is a disaster that threatens to blow out the entire economy, a terrorist attack on the fabric of this county perpetrated by the very people who have sworn to govern it responsibly, and (laugh no more) competently

In other words, it sucks that your internet drops at home, and you’re forced to converse with actual people, but this country has far larger problems.

If we’re having a go at Eskom, we have to have a go at the looter-in-chief, too:

…when Zuma took the reins in 2009, Eskom produced 40,000MW, had 30,000 employees, and carried the debt of R40-billion. It now produces 48,000MW, has 37,000 employees, and services more than ten times the debt. It does not generate enough revenue to pay the interest, let alone salaries, maintenance, and fuel.

…Then there are the likes of the Gupta brothers, Zuma’s infamous benefactors who managed, among other gravity-defying acts, to get a R600-million prepayment from Eskom they used to buy a coal mine called Optimum from mining giant Glencore

Pretty sure that fact won’t get brought up at the lavish R100 million wedding the Guptas are throwing in Dubai next week.

If you want to broaden your horizons, you can also direct anger at the following people:

Former Eskom Group Holdings Acting Chief Executive Matshela Koko, another of the larcenous cretins who proliferated during the Zuma years, tweeted some numbers during Monday’s blackout…

Koko is right. Except that, until his recent forced exit, he was the Top. Koko and the rest of Zuma’s kleptocrats form an unbroken, centuries-long tradition of South African elites who refuse to accept blame, or any accountability. The endless queues at taxi ranks, the R2-billion loss in revenue every day, the waiters serving empty restaurants, the dark school rooms — that’s all because of Koko, Brian Molefe, Ben Ngubane and their many fellow executioners.

And still, not a single soul languishes in a prison cell for corruption and greed of the highest order.

To finish, they circle round to the terrorist analogy once more:

The lights are out for two reasons: corruption and mismanagement. For most countries, it would take a terrorist attack of unimaginable proportions to shut down the power grid. Here, the threat came from within — from the leaders elected to serve us and protect us. Their shame can only be quantified in darkness. Right now, there is plenty to go around.

Ah, what a way to start a Tuesday, right?

You can keep track of when you’re expected to plunge into darkness here.

[sources:dailymav]