{"id":45306,"date":"2023-03-05T11:55:22","date_gmt":"2023-03-05T11:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant"},"modified":"2023-03-05T12:37:54","modified_gmt":"2023-03-05T12:37:54","slug":"eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant","title":{"rendered":"Eskom: South Africa’s fallen energy giant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>It was once a source of national pride \u2014 an award-winning firm that powered South Africa’s mining boom and later brought electricity to black communities left behind by apartheid.<\/p>\n

Today, a hundred years after its birth, Eskom has experienced a spectacular fall from grace.<\/p>\n

South Africa’s energy giant is crippled by debt, beset by corruption scandals and unable to keep the lights on.<\/p>\n

Families and businesses are exasperated by the record power cuts imposed by the utility, which provides about 90 percent of the country’s electricity.<\/p>\n

“To South Africans today, (Eskom) represents a source of enormous frustration and ridicule,” said Kyle Cowan, author of Sabotage, a book detailing Eskom’s troubles.<\/p>\n

A tweet Wednesday to mark the corporation’s centenary summed up the bitter mood.<\/p>\n

“We hope you enjoy the cake we made for you,” it said, accompanied by a picture of a bowl of raw cake batter \u2014 uncooked because of the blackouts.<\/p>\n

Eskom prides itself on its long history, which is closely intertwined with that of modern South Africa.<\/p>\n

Its website reminds readers how “the good townspeople of Kimberley,” a diamond mining hotspot, were in 1882 among the first in the world to get electric street lights \u2014 even managing “to beat London to it”.<\/p>\n

Eskom was set up on March 1, 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM), tasked with boosting industry and mining activities.<\/p>\n

Gold had been found where Johannesburg would spring up, and mines required a lot of power to run.<\/p>\n

Coal rush<\/b><\/p>\n

Coal-fired stations started popping up across the country and grew bigger and more plentiful through the decades.<\/p>\n

Yet there was a catch.<\/p>\n

All this largely benefited white people, with black South Africans segregated and disregarded by the apartheid government.<\/p>\n

In 1987 only 40 percent of the population had access to electricity.<\/p>\n

The first democratic elections in 1994 were followed by a push to electrify millions of homes, and keep electricity prices low.<\/p>\n

The mammoth effort even won Eskom an award in 2001.<\/p>\n

But it was not backed by additional capacity, something that laid the foundations for today’s troubles, Cowan said.<\/p>\n

Most of the power stations are older than 45 years, and break down frequently leaving South Africans without lights for up to 12 hours each day.<\/p>\n

“Eskom has basically been mismanaged into the ground,” said Cowan.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana admitted Eskom’s woes, highlighting to AFP “the debt situation, which is making it difficult to move with speed, in particular upgrading their plants.”<\/p>\n

In 1998, a government paper warned the country risked running out of electricity within a decade unless new plants were built.<\/p>\n

But the advice was left unheeded until the last minute, something ex-president Thabo Mbeki would later apologise for.<\/p>\n

‘Cyanide’<\/b><\/p>\n

Eskom began building two new coal-powered stations only in 2007, the year power cuts were first imposed.<\/p>\n

But the new plants suffered from commissioning delays, design and construction problems, massive cost overruns and allegations of graft.<\/p>\n

Under Jacob Zuma’s presidency, Eskom found itself at the centre of a massive corruption scandal.<\/p>\n

Millions of dollars were allegedly syphoned off through fraudulent contracts in return for bribes.<\/p>\n

Last year, an ex-CEO was arrested for money laundering and fraud.<\/p>\n

In February, the firm’s outgoing chief Andre de Ruyter compared corruption at Eskom to a cancer that had “metastasised” and “grown throughout the entire body of the organisation.”<\/p>\n

In one egregious case, the company had been paying R80 000 apiece for knee guards sold in retail stores at R300, he said.<\/p>\n

Attempts to clean up the firm faced fierce internal resistance, he told local broadcaster eNCA, adding he suffered a poisoning attempt in December, drinking coffee laced with cyanide.<\/p>\n

Hours after the interview, in which he accused the ruling ANC party of being involved in the wrongdoing, he was asked to leave his post prematurely.<\/p>\n

Eskom has had more than a dozen CEOs in the past 15 years.<\/p>\n

“Corruption is not the reason why the energy crisis started, but it’s a big reason why it is still not solved,” said Roula Inglesi-Lotz, a University of Pretoria economics professor.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile government policies aimed at protecting the country’s coal industry, which employs almost 100,000 people, stymied the roll out of renewables.<\/p>\n

A licensing threshold for private power generation projects was removed only last year.<\/p>\n

Trade unions have pushed back against plans to boost private investment in green energy and break up the monopoly into separate divisions for generation, transmission and distribution.<\/p>\n

Eskom employs over 30 000 workers.<\/p>\n

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced a national state of disaster in a bid to tackle the energy crisis.<\/p>\n

Many South Africans who hope this could help bring some relief, might be in for a disappointment.<\/p>\n

“There are no quick fixes,” said Inglesi-Lotz.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About South-Africa<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. It was once a source of national pride \u2014 an award-winning firm that powered South Africa’s mining boom and later brought electricity to black communities left behind by apartheid. Today, a hundred years after its birth, Eskom has experienced a spectacular fall from grace. South Africa’s energy giant is crippled by debt, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":45305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[274,315,275],"class_list":["post-45306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-africa","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"\nEskom: South Africa's fallen energy giant - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It was once a source of national pride \u2014 an award-winning firm that powered South Africa's mining boom and later brought ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eskom: South Africa's fallen energy giant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was once a source of national pride \u2014 an award-winning firm that powered South Africa's mining boom and later brought ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-05T11:55:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-05T12:37:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1678004733.61.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"479\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Eskom: South Africa’s fallen energy giant\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-05T11:55:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-05T12:37:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant\"},\"wordCount\":792,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1678004733.61.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-South-Africa\",\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-south-africas-fallen-energy-giant\",\"name\":\"Eskom: South Africa's fallen energy giant - 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