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Topic: The Dark Continent gets a little darker... (Read 927 times) |
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letheomaniac
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The Dark Continent gets a little darker...
« on: 2008-01-25 05:06:58 » |
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[letheomaniac] This story seems to have been hitting the headlines across the world, although I suppose that is to be expected as South Africa has the largest economy on the continent. But even more irritating than the rolling blackouts (euphemistically termed 'load shedding' by our state-run power utility) is the fact that the people in charge of Eskom have been paying themselves millions of Rands in bonuses for doing a piss-poor job. Still, this is the same country where Jacob 'Showerhead' Zuma has been elected president of the ANC (and de-facto president of the country) while awaiting trial on corruption charges. *Sigh*
Outrage as power fatcats get bonuses
Thabo Mkhize
Published:Jan 25, 2008
Trade unions, opposition parties furious over handouts
The massive R57-million in bonuses paid to “under-performing” Eskom bosses over the last three years has elicited outrage as the country continues to suffer relentless power cuts.
The news of the huge pay packets comes as the utility has warned that the “load-shedding risk remains high today”.
“We are reviewing the situation on a daily basis,” said Eskom’s Nto Rikhotso yesterday.
She could not say what the situation would be at the weekend.
Jaco Kleynhans, spokesman for trades union Solidarity, said the bonuses were not warranted as the same executives had failed to prevent the current crisis .
Kleynhans said: “They [Eskom bosses] were given bonuses for not doing the right thing — the right thing would have been to plan to prevent this electricity crisis. The company’s problems are getting bigger and, unfortunately, the bonuses are also getting bigger. This doesn’t make business sense.
“If I was responsible for deciding on bonuses, I would give them nothing because of the way they are handling the crisis.”
Patrick Craven, spokesman for Cosatu, also slammed the bonuses paid to the power utility’s bosses.
He said: “We are totally disgusted that Eskom paid the bonuses. There is no evidence whatsoever that they earned them.
“Morally, there is an overwhelming case that the money should be paid back.”
Mani van Wyk, DA spokesman on public enterprises, said her party will submit parliamentary questions about the bonuses.
Van Wyk said: “Eskom’s last three annual reports show that the power utility’s ability to supply the country with power has had little bearing on the amount senior executives are paid in bonuses.
“In this three-year period, Eskom’s top management was paid a total of R143-million, including R57-million in bonuses.
“It is surprising to note that while Eskom has encouraged the nation to save electricity, it has failed to use its finances wisely — spending in excess of R100-million on under-performing managers, rather than on critical expenditure, such as maintenance and the financing of new power projects.”
Van Wyk said Eskom has cost the South African economy millions of rands due to the impact of relentless load shedding.
There was no justification to pay “extravagant bonuses while ordinary South Africans are left in the dark”, he said.
Eskom plans to spend R150- billion in the next five years building new power stations and upgrading old ones.
Lance Greyling, the ID spokesman for energy, said the current crisis gave the country an opportunity “to kick-start a renewable energy industry”.
Greyling said his party believes Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica should set bold targets for renewable energy.
He said: “The ID believes a target of 1000MW should be set for wind generation, as studies have shown that South Africa’s potential for wind energy is in excess of 3000MW.”
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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker
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Hermit
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Re:The Dark Continent gets a little darker...
« Reply #1 on: 2008-01-26 07:00:20 » |
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It is a 7 to 12 year cycle to design and implement a power station. So this is not going to improve in the near future. And having started the downhill progression, it tends to become self-reinforcing. People don't make large capital investments requiring reliable power into areas where power is unreliable. Which means that the additional capacity tends to be too little and too late.
Pity that they didn't get the go ahead for the additional nuclear and high efficiency powdered coal plants Escom's planning department said were needed in the 1990s. Had the ANC not felt there were much more important things to do (none of which were achieved by them), the latter would have been on-line and carrying load before now, with the nuclear plants coming in shortly, and there wouldn't be rolling black-outs at all. Given that prior to 1997 Escom never had required black-outs in its entire history, it is a sad comment on the current management and its overclose relationship with the ruling party. I suspect that the American style "bonuses" in the face of declining competence is also largely a consequence of the above.
Interesting but depressing reading. Thank-you letheomaniac.
Kindest regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:The Dark Continent gets a little darker...
« Reply #2 on: 2008-01-27 00:50:20 » |
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[Blunderov] An harbinger of things to come on a global scale? In the case of South Africa our shortage is due to peak competence ("lack of capacity" as it is referred to in government circles) but the results, when peak oil hits home, are likely to be similar.
Once again the law of unexpected consequences pops up nastily in inconvenient feedback cycles. For instance the chief source, the mining industry, of the foreign currency necessary for the building of needed new electricity infrastructure is now itself underproducing due to power shortages.
We are a test tube for what lies in wait for the world. Patients dying on operating tables. Commute times almost equal to the actual time spent at work, if not greater. Furthermore the actual time spent at work will be mostly ineffective ayway due to lack of power. Disgruntled workers set fire to trains last week because power outage left them stranded far from home after a long day's work leaving even less money available to upgrade power supplies.
It isn't even Winter yet. Nobody is talking about THAT. The elderly will die in droves due to lack of heating. Crime increasing due to lack of lighting and the failure of alarm systems, not to metion the random destruction of sensitive microelectronic systems throughout the country.
Of course it does nothing for the public mood to learn that the Eskom bosses have been whiling away the long hours by awarding themselves lavish "performance" bonuses, apparently to the exclusion of any other business whatsoever. These people have ALREADY being paid for what they don't do. Seemingly the only thing that matters to these moral pygmies is that they keep their arms inside the cash register all the way up to the elbows for as long as possible. May their arseholes grow shut in the night so as to render them literally, as well as figuratively, full of shit.
Brave new world.
http://www.namibian.com.na/2008/January/national/08E07841F9.html
"On Sunday South Africa's power utility Eskom announced it had halted power exports to Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe because local demand had grown so much that it had to supply its own country first."
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2258563,00.html
Eskom tells mines to shut down
25/01/2008 10:42 - (SA)
Govt: Power outages 'a national emergency'
Eskom bosses paid huge bonuses
Hundreds of engineers quit SA
David McKay and Brendan Ryan
Johannesburg - South Africa's gold mines, and mining companies in other sectors, were instructed on Thursday night by electricity utility Eskom to shut their mines, possibly for up to between two to six weeks.
A letter signed by Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga said that key industrial consumers (KPI) had to reduce their power loads to "minimum levels". He added that Eskom could not guarantee power supply.
"We did not send down a shift last night and we did not send one this morning at any of our mines," said Willie Jacobsz, spokesman for Gold Fields. "I understand the situation is the same at AngloGold Ashanti and Harmony Gold," he said.
A Johannesburg analyst said, however, that smaller consumers such as Simmer & Jack Mines and DRDGold still had power, at least at present.
In the letter, Maroga said the mines were required to "evacuate all underground staff"; "suspend all surface and underground mining"; but were allowed to keep essential services operating such as pumping and lighting. Mining companies would also be allowed underground if proto-teams were required to tackle fires.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7204841.stm
"China in power shortage warning
China generates more than half its electricity from coal
China says it is facing serious power shortages as severe winter weather continues to cause unusually high demand for electricity.
Thirteen regions have already started to ration power supplies, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
It said coal reserves were down to emergency levels and stockpiles were only high enough to generate power for the whole country for eight days.
China's economic boom has led to surging demand for electricity.
The coal industry has struggled to keep up, partly because of the government's campaign to close many small mines on safety grounds.
Peak demand
China's National Development and Reform Commission, which has control over energy issues, has called on coal suppliers and electricity providers to do their best to maintain output while promoting energy conservation.
It said winter demand was at its peak, and that low water levels has caused hydroelectric output to fall, further driving demand for coal power.
The China Business News newspaper said that 70% of all coal deliveries were made by road, and that heavy snowfall and icy conditions had contributed to supply problems."
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letheomaniac
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Re:The Dark Continent gets a little darker...
« Reply #3 on: 2008-02-11 01:51:28 » |
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Eskom has released a staement saying that it is no longer permissable in the new South Africa to refer to power cuts as 'blackouts', they must now be refered to as 'previously lit areas'. 
(For those of you who are unfamiliar with South African political double-speak, the black community of this country are refered to as 'previously/historically disadvantaged'. This excremental piece of euphemism conveniently glosses over the fact that the vast majority of the black community are currently disadvantaged as well). If only we could use the spin generated by our government and the hot air produced by the politicians therein to run our turbines.
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Fritz
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Re:The Dark Continent gets a little darker...
« Reply #4 on: 2008-02-11 15:50:55 » |
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It is discouraging to hear the state of affairs in South Africa.
Years ago; letters with money orders to names in South Africa were monthly stamp and envelope licking evenings while watching the Waltons on TV. I guess they were headier times and the pier pressure urged you on because it was clearly the right thing to do to help. A couple times a year someone came by the Fraternity House recently back from South Africa to assure us the what we were doing was helping ... the 1970s were a long time ago .... sigh.
Now the Politics of Fear and a grim view of the state of the planet has me totally uncertain and immobilized and invested in me and my family.
A side bar for contrast. A couple of summers ago I was baby sitting a diesel generator and trying to get keep a Data Centre cool as rolling blackouts in our nations capital were on going do to lack power on the grid. This has remained an ongoing threat each summer as temperature raise and cooling demands on power push our power grid to the limit.
[letheomaniac] and [Hermit] I suspect are correct in suggesting that these are signs of things to come ... and all the '...stans' in the old USSR all without power this winter reinforces this.
... Sigh ... Fritz
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