How Eskom was destroyed

Oldfut said:
Not directly related to Eskom but the way the Mbeki ANC, and then the Zupta ANC, applied AA and BEE to benefit their family and friends has, in my view, done a major disservice to black people. It is quite often stated that "AA or BEE" or "black people" caused "the problem", implying blanket corruption and incompetence in Eskom, other SOE's. municipalities etc. The end result can be (I am being careful here) that say black engineers are all viewed as being of limited competence and/or integrity (excluding those from Zim of course - that is for Mr Champ).

This is obviously not true and I believe that, given equality, there is no correlation between race and competence. But sadly what I see is many well qualified and smart engineers struggling as they have been placed in a position for which they do not have the experience and, as the corrupt ANC AA system started from the top, do not have much hope of being mentored and/or gaining really meaningful and valuable experience. Quite similar with BEE and tenders.
Click to expand...
That narrative is nicely helped along by our racists, who even in the face of blatant corruption will still insist that's its because of AA/BEE. Someone like Matshela Koko is a qualified and competent engineer who basically grew up in Eskom, but just because he is alleged to be corrupt he is then a fine example of AA/BEE incompetence.
 
garp said:
I had first hand experience working closely within various departments at Eskom as a contractor. Starting in the early to mid 2000s they aggressively cleansed all departments of their most qualified and experienced white personnel under the guise of BEE, indiscriminately replacing managers with people who seemed to bear no affinity or experience for their roles.

One particular department I worked with went from being globally recognized in its field to a standing joke in the period of 2 years. A junior intern was promoted to run the department over several highly respected long serving PhDs as she was the girlfriend of some senior manager elsewhere in Eskom. All they do now is struggle to produce the same reports they did 15 years ago and there has been zero development or innovation, only decline.
Click to expand...
If it sounds too much like a cool story, it is a cool story.
 
Cornman said:
We should also consider that when Eskom was doing so well, it was not supplying electricity to most of the population of South Africa.
Click to expand...
Rubbish. Eskom had so much surplus power they supplied many countries up north, and they couldn't give it away they were so efficient. Just go and look at their output capacity in 1990 vs 2020.
 
TheChamp said:
That narrative is nicely helped along by our racists, who even in the face of blatant corruption will still insist that's its because of AA/BEE. Someone like Matshela Koko is a qualified and competent engineer who basically grew up in Eskom, but just because he is alleged to be corrupt he is then a fine example of AA/BEE incompetence.
Click to expand...
Black government, voted for by blacks, ignored Eskom's warnings, used BEE to replace experienced people & the didn't handle transition of Eskom's workforce responsibly by transferring knowledge from white to black first, but we're the racists?

LOL are you gonna pretend it wasn't the same black government who institutionalized corruption & undermined the law to prevent prosecution of the corrupt either?

Your little racist inferiority complex isn't cutting it any longer, people are opening their eyes to the true character of the ANC being the cause of South Africa's (entirely avoidable) problems.
 
TheChamp said:
That narrative is nicely helped along by our racists, who even in the face of blatant corruption will still insist that's its because of AA/BEE. Someone like Matshela Koko is a qualified and competent engineer who basically grew up in Eskom, but just because he is alleged to be corrupt he is then a fine example of AA/BEE incompetence.
Click to expand...

Corruption is one factor, a large one, in a multi-factored equation that resulted in the position that Eskom currently finds itself in.

Like it or not AA/BEE is part of that equation as well as Eskom has, since-94, been hell bent on transformation at the cost of scarce skills. This has resulted in 2 things: Complete loss of skills/experience or the transfer of those skills/experience to consultancy at several times the cost of retaining it in-house.

...and based on what I'd seen during my time there and the feedback from friends/family who are still there, it appears the situation has worsened. The push for transformation continues using what is left in the pool of internal resources as they cannot employ externally. The result of which places people who have no business occupying the positions they find themselves in a situation that is not only damaging to themselves, but to Eskom as a whole and idea of competency being retained through transformation.

Racists cheering or not. It's an undeniable reality.
 
TheChamp said:
That narrative is nicely helped along by our racists, who even in the face of blatant corruption will still insist that's its because of AA/BEE. Someone like Matshela Koko is a qualified and competent engineer who basically grew up in Eskom, but just because he is alleged to be corrupt he is then a fine example of AA/BEE incompetence.
Click to expand...
Eish. Fine upstanding chap that Koko. I was so impressed with his howlers live on Carte Blanche and the great job he did before the Zondo Commission. More impressive was how this great "qualified and competent engineer who basically grew up in Eskom" kept the lights on the face of whiteys (I guess) trying to undermine him everywhere. Did it even extend to him organising a fantastic BEE company Mr Gupta, sir) to supply dry coal when all the "white owned" companies could not? Er, not, load shedding incoming. The proof of the pudding be in the eating; but I guess that is only for whites.

Wakey, wakey, it ain't AA/BEE;, amoral though it is; like apartheid, it is how it was suborned by the ANC to appoint incompetent and corrupt cadres into positions they were not fit to hold, the competent, upstanding and great etc etc Mr Koko excluded of course, based on your support for him.

I think racism as applied by the ANC will destroy SA's economy; again, as apartheid did. Amazing that we are too timid to try co-operation, unity and equality (and merit). Why?
 
Oldfut said:
Eish. Fine upstanding chap that Koko. I was so impressed with his howlers live on Carte Blanche and the great job he did before the Zondo Commission. More impressive was how this great "qualified and competent engineer who basically grew up in Eskom" kept the lights on the face of whiteys (I guess) trying to undermine him everywhere. Did it even extend to him organising a fantastic BEE company Mr Gupta, sir) to supply dry coal when all the "white owned" companies could not? Er, not, load shedding incoming. The proof of the pudding be in the eating; but I guess that is only for whites.

Wakey, wakey, it ain't AA/BEE;, amoral though it is; like apartheid, it is how it was suborned by the ANC to appoint incompetent and corrupt cadres into positions they were not fit to hold, the competent, upstanding and great etc etc Mr Koko excluded of course, based on your support for him.

I think racism as applied by the ANC will destroy SA's economy; again, as apartheid did. Amazing that we are too timid to try co-operation, unity and equality (and merit). Why?
Click to expand...
Nice, implying that's what I said?
 
Personally I view that if you are supporting BEE the way it is now, you are in fact a racist.

If you say a black person needs "laws" to get a job, you in effect telling me that black person is less capable in doing that job than someone else. Merit based employment is the only way to go, if not then there is no drive/competition to try and be better than the one next to you.

If I can fall back on my skin color and don't have to work as hard as that whitey next to me why should I?

BEE should address the real problem by helping people that want to help themselves ie: Help improving skills.
A) Free education and housing scholarship based on results
B) Tax incentive for companies to train & educate staff.
 
AlphaJohn said:
Personally I view that if you are supporting BEE the way it is now, you are in fact a racist.

If you say a black person needs "laws" to get a job, you in effect telling me that black person is less capable in doing that job than someone else. Merit based employment is the only way to go, if not then there is no drive/competition to try and be better than the one next to you.

If I can fall back on my skin color and don't have to work as hard as that whitey next to me why should I?

BEE should address the real problem by helping people that want to help themselves ie: Help improving skills.
A) Free education and housing scholarship based on results
B) Tax incentive for companies to train & educate staff.
Click to expand...
The assumption being that the whitey next to you is a hard worker and is there on merit and not because of an entrenched system of race based patronage that resulted in the whitey getting the job?
 
Last edited:
TheChamp said:
The assumption being that the whitey next to you is a hard worker and is there on merit and not because of an entrenched system of race based patronage that resulted in the whitey getting the job?
Click to expand...

On merit based employment it would implore management to get rid of those, cause common believe now is that em whities work harder than the rest, cause the BEE placement was simply to fill a quota, not because they can do the job.

In the long run all companies wanna make money... if left to their own devices they will quickly pick up where the dead waste is.
 
garp said:
I had first hand experience working closely within various departments at Eskom as a contractor. Starting in the early to mid 2000s they aggressively cleansed all departments of their most qualified and experienced white personnel under the guise of BEE, indiscriminately replacing managers with people who seemed to bear no affinity or experience for their roles.

One particular department I worked with went from being globally recognized in its field to a standing joke in the period of 2 years. A junior intern was promoted to run the department over several highly respected long serving PhDs as she was the girlfriend of some senior manager elsewhere in Eskom. All they do now is struggle to produce the same reports they did 15 years ago and there has been zero development or innovation, only decline.
Click to expand...
Exactly the same happened at Transnet ...
 
TheChamp said:
If it sounds too much like a cool story, it is a cool story.
Click to expand...
If somebody told story about SARS IT boss before her interview it would sound like cool story too.
We would all say nop, this can not be true and yet all was exposed in famous interview.
Even cooler story is that she got rewarder with cool 1.8 bar to leave.

So yes plenty of cools stories that you can ignore and somehow blame messenger.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X