Eskom was right

[oldBastard]

Goverment ignored Eskom pleas

ohannesburg - President Thabo Mbeki has acknowledged that government under-investment is to blame for a growing number of power cuts that have plunged large parts of the country into darkness.

Addressing a fund-raising dinner for the ruling African National Congress night, Mbeki said his government should have heeded pleas by state power utility Eskom several years ago to invest more in electricity generation to keep up with country's economic growth.

"When Eskom said to the government: 'We think we must invest more in terms of electricity generation', we said no, but all you will be doing is just to build excess capacity," Mbeki said in comments broadcast on public radio.

"We said not now, later. We were wrong. Eskom was right. We were wrong."

Mbeki's rare public apology comes at a time when the country is experiencing the worst power cuts in years, forcing Eskom to start rationing electricity this week as part of a programme that should last until the end of the week.

The rationing has led to a raft of complaints from businesses and retailers in the build-up to Christmas, while traffic jams are a common sight with many traffics lights out of action.

Goverment ignored Eskom pleas

A bit too late, should've learned from the previous gauviment - you built in advance.

 

[Bona Botse]

so is he gonna fire his deputies in charge of that field?

 

[Dastrix]

Thats nice T-Bone, now what are you going to do about it?

Probably nothing, like the time he admitted they had failed in Telecoms liberalisation, when was that? 2005 or something?

Useless!!!

 

[jambai]

welcome to africa

it was pretty much expected as we all know what happens in rest of africa where nobody knows when power is going to go on instead of off.typical african mentalty , one of the many reason why africa never prospurs as they live for the day.

My concern is surely it can only get worse as capacity can not be added over night.Another concern waht about the soccer world cup is their going to be enough during peak demand periods

 

[Bona Botse]

if eskom reads these forums, i'd like to formally apologise for all the fantansies i had of setting ur offices on fire

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Hey, T-Bone, it's too late to catch a wake-up call...

...you did a bad job of presidency by the way.

Now get out.

 

[Pilgrim]

My concern is surely it can only get worse as capacity can not be added over night.Another concern waht about the soccer world cup is their going to be enough during peak demand periods

Nah, there are plenty of factories/malls/homes to loadshed...

The stadiums will shine like a beacon of light

 

[stoke]

What about all the electricity the freaking new aluminum smelter is using MBEKI?
Do you perhaps own shares in that operation as well?
Why don't you close it down till we have the capacity to support it?

 

[TiredOfWaiting]

What about all the electricity the freaking new aluminum smelter is using MBEKI?
Do you perhaps own shares in that operation as well?
Why don't you close it down till we have the capacity to support it?

Uuh, because it makes more money than most/all of the residential units combined?

Electricity goes to the highest bidder in this country...

 

[Sneeky]

Alec 'the bolt' Erwin was on telly last year sometime admitting it was a government balls up and that Eskom had warned them of the forecasted shortfalls.

Just prepare yourselves. This load shedding is only the beginning.
Power demand will only increase every day and it will be years before more worthwhile electricity supply comes online.

That said though EKSDOM could do a much better job of informing people of where the load shedding will be taking plac and when.
At the moment it is as though someone is jut tripping switches at random.
Poor form.

 

[Road runner]

Just got stuck in the movies, and the traffic, and my house power will be cut off just now, as well as INTERNET access!!. Thanks T_Bone! Happy December in your standby generator protected collective world!

 

[The_Unbeliever]

A big thumbs down to T-Bone

This will cost him a lot of votes.

His own fault.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

There's one positive outlook to this thing - and that we are being forced to look at ways and means to cut down on electricity consumption, which is a good thing.

I'm thinking of buying a small genny should I get some moola back from SARS...

 

[NoRulez]

Another positive outlook:

Thanks to Eskom I still have work - replaced 2x motherboards and a PSU today and have another call-out for 3 more machines tomorrow.
Not to talk about all the drives I had to re-image at various companies during the past 2 weeks due to software corruption...
Found the local Telkom tech on site this morning and he too is pleased to replace switchboards which are damaged by sudden power loss.

Keep it up Eskom! It is called job creation!
Bugger the economy and the rich companies that have to pay the cost of equipment replacement.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Another positive outlook:

Thanks to Eskom I still have work - replaced 2x motherboards and a PSU today and have another call-out for 3 more machines tomorrow.
Not to talk about all the drives I had to re-image at various companies during the past 2 weeks due to software corruption...
Found the local Telkom tech on site this morning and he too is pleased to replace switchboards which are damaged by sudden power loss.

Keep it up Eskom! It is called job creation!
Bugger the economy and the rich companies that have to pay the cost of equipment replacement.

Heh... trying to do backups before disaster strikes

Usually I'm able to shutdown the servers safely before loadshedding, but over a weekend it'll be a different thing...

 

[Highflyer_GP]

Addressing a fund-raising dinner for the ruling African National Congress night, Mbeki said his government should have heeded pleas by state power utility Eskom several years ago to invest more in electricity generation to keep up with country's economic growth.

Any chance that the fancy ANC fund raising dinner would have been plunged into darkness?

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Any chance that the fancy ANC fund raising dinner would have been plunged into darkness?

Hey, I would *love* to see that happening!