The People Vs Eskom

IT’S UNANIMOUS: ESKOM IS THE MOST hated organisation in South Africa.

- Jonathan Erasmus

IT’S UNANIMOUS: ESKOM IS THE MOST hated organisation in South Africa. If you have attended or have been watching the public hearings held by the National Energy Regulator (Nersa) on whether Eskom should be given a 45% tariff increase over three years, you will realise that Eskom does not even trust itself – despite asking South Africans to cough up another trillion rand.

Even the Rastafarians booked a hearing slot to tell Eskom to “fix what needs to be fixed”.

The problems at Eskom are common knowledge: from state capture to massive overspending on capital projects and paying high premiums on coal, gas and diesel to politically connected friends, and employing more than three times the needed staff – each earning on average R800,000 per annum – as well as failing infrastructure, poor sales, poor maintenance and a debt burden so high it needs lines of credit just to pay the interest on the debt. Eskom, it is unanimously said “is not sustainable”.

The hearings have also unearthed an otherwise-muzzled voice in South Africa – largely due to its being linked to the embattled pro-Jacob Zuma nuclear lobby – with some business forums calling on the government to scrap or seriously rein in the Independent Power Producer Programme, calling it too costly.

Business and agriculture chambers lined up – from Middelburg, the Karoo, Virginia to Pietermaritzburg. They have called for a complete reorganisation of Eskom, an overhaul of how it works and, like in the case of Agri-Western Cape, the breaking up of Eskom and sale of portions to private enterprise to break the parastatal’s “monopolistic stronghold” because the national power company is literally too big to be allowed to fail.

Eskom’s request comes under two headings: the Regulatory Clearing Account (RCA) and the Multi-Year Price Determination application (MYPD).