Is Eskom doing an Enron on SA?

[chiskop]

Interesting letter in this morning's Business Day:

I had a very troubling conversation with a relatively senior executive of Eskom recently, who told me there was no shortage of electrical supply at present, but an executive decision had been made at Eskom to contain supply to the minimum from January 14.

According to the executive, the Eskom execs were tired of fighting with the government about tariff increases and the funding of expansion and had decided to teach it a lesson and withdraw a percentage of the supply from the market.
...

 

[Moederloos]

BS.

Did David Copperfield make the coal disappear?

Chiskop - as you have said:
Do not assign to malice what can be accounted for by incompetence.

 

[icyrus]

I doubt it, but if its true all eskom execs should be shot for high treason.

 

[chiskop]

Chiskop - as you have said:
Do not assign to malice what can be accounted for by incompetence.

Yeah, you're right .

 

[Syndyre]

It wouldn't surprise me but it also wouldn't surprise me if they were just useless and incompetent.

 

[Moederloos]

I doubt it, but if its true all eskom execs should be shot for high treason.

Seconded.
In fact, they should be shot anyways.

 

[semiautomatix]

Do they really have the intelligence to be able to formulate such an intricate plan?

 

[DJ...]

Even if this conspiracy is true, it wouldnt make them excempt from being useless and incompetent.

 

[DJ...]

They would have to have drawn up this elaborate plan ten years ago when the white paper was presented to govt.

BTW - why is it called a "white" paper? Is it not just a paper? I am offended.

 

[daveza]

Cos if it was a black paper you wouldn't be able to read the text ?

 

[ToxicBunny]

If Eskom was being run by intelligent people, I wouldn't have a problem believing this, but yeah... Its run by not-so-intelligent people, so i doubt they'd have come up with such a brilliant plan.

 

[HavocXphere]

No. Makes no sense.

Why risk being one of the heads that roll?
Why endanger the big-@ssed performance bonuses?
Why risk a system wide collapse as discussed in the other thread?
Why loadshed one of their best customers, the mines?
Why risk the embarrassment and public ridicule?
Why risk p!ssing of shareholders with a tanking shareprice? (Directors also have shares)

Also "relatively senior executives" rarely have any clue whats cooking i.t.o long term strategy.

It just does not make sense strategy wise.

 

[Alan]

Watch this documentry called 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room'

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=972394030048527048

Interesting and unnerving

 

[bekdik]

I doubt it, but if its true all eskom execs should be shot for high treason.

That should happen anyway

 

[bekdik]

Cos if it was a black paper you wouldn't be able to read the text ?

Why assume the text must be black? Yellow would work fine