Blame game will not solve power problems
In the light – or lack of it – of Eskom load shedding, local community developer Chris Mkhize suggests we must look to ourselves, rather than the utility, to find the answers.
The fact of the matter is that electricity supply or, in this case, the lack of it, affects all planned socio-economic development initiatives and causes misery to families.
And, in some instances, this forces small businesses to close down at a time when we need to be creating more jobs than ever before.
Our country can only develop socially and economically by doing things that allow and encourage orderly socio-economic development to flourish, and not on the basis of facing constant and unpredictable load shedding, which also makes our country uncompetitive and chases away investors.
Solutions have now to be found, and we no longer have time for blame games.
We all have to work out solutions to our current electricity supply to businesses and households. We are facing a real crisis situation.
South African history, as most of us would know, is littered with a plethora of diverse fair and unfair blame games or accusations and counter accusations of social ills of the past.
When we blamed socialism and capitalism as economic systems, we were able to opt for a mixed economy. We found some middle ground.
When we blamed apartheid and colonisation, we were able to find appropriate reactionary measures to debilitate the harmful effects of the two ideologies.
Today our experiences with Eskom simply add to our belief that when faced with a national crisis, ordinary citizens have more power to improve their socio-economic conditions than solely relying on Eskom to come up with lasting solutions.
Load shedding has become the dominant topic of conversation among all of us – rich, poor, employed, unemployed and, hopefully, Eskom staff as well.
In fact everyone including our public representatives remain equally concerned and fearful about what actually lies ahead.
Suggestions from some local residents may not be completely ignored.
These include more investments in solar power as an alternative source of reliable supply of energy.
Other local residents suggest we should consider investing more in gas supply as also an alternative source of energy.
Widespread use of generators is advocated by many, but not always recommended, for valid reasons.
Such suggestion cannot be expected to come from Eskom, which has a duty to guard against expressions of conflict of interest in handling the issue of load shedding and managing extreme forms of anger from local residents.
But there are answers for many situations, outside of anything Eskom might say or do.
We will have to find and implement them.
