The politics of hiring free engineers to help fix Eskom's breakdown problem

Jet-Fighter7700 said:
Racism is still racism, even if its physically impossible for Black people to be Racist.
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I was not aware that the term Racism exempts blacks, living in laalaaland .....

/ˈreɪsɪzəm/ /ˈreɪsɪzəm/ [uncountable] the unfair treatment of people who belong to a different race; violent behaviour towards them.

Where is the exemption for Blacks ? I cant find it in the oxford dictionary where it states a certain race is exempt ?

Being racist is a mental state not a physical state, are you still drunk from the weekend ?
 
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Mike Hoxbig said:
Sure, but no future company would trust a CEO that took a giant schit over his previous employer, whatever the reasons. He can up and leave without having to be a child about it...
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Not to mention that he would be complicit on whatever corruption he would be exposing, whatever happened to konfab? wasn't he a bright fellow? I am beginning to suspect that the real konfab died long ago and some con artist took over the account.
 
GoofySmurf said:
I was not aware that the term Racism exempts blacks, living in laalaaland .....

Being racist is a mental state not a physical state, are you still drunk from the weekend ?
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I think that's just because some of the black racists claim it so and are supported by some white racists who think they're being sarcastic and clever.
 
F*** off with policies, F*** off with agendas, fix the sh** and get the lights working!

Any true engineers purpose is to ignore the polictics and get the job done, thats the type of people we need , regardles of race, colour or creed. Political apointees are just screwing things up, the quicker this is out of government hands the better.
 
This just proves again the ANC does not care about the people.

Democracy is such a failure. South Africa is an example of this.
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
Sure, but no future company would trust a CEO that took a giant schit over his previous employer, whatever the reasons. He can up and leave without having to be a child about it...
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Eskom isn't exactly in everyone's good books.
 
Jan said:
Eskom appoints 18 from Solidarity's list of 300 skilled engineers — while being hamstrung by politics

Eskom has so far appointed 18 people from a list of 300 "turnaround agents" submitted to the power utility by Solidarity, according to Rapport.

The relatively small number of appointees is reportedly due to the utility facing an uphill battle against political leaders over the "inclusivity" of its skills procurement plans.
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We need to get Andre De Ruyter to focus on conversation with the people of SA. The Government has long ago lost the realization that they are there to deliver a service to the people. The citizens will strengthen the hands of Andre to do what needs to be done and safeguard him against interference from government and their failed policies. I have been publicly advocating this for quite dome time now and it has been an urgent step for a long time. Get Andre to speak with us. He as the CEO of Eskom needs to listen and converse with us the people who pay them.
 
TheChamp said:
Not to mention that he would be complicit on whatever corruption he would be exposing, whatever happened to konfab? wasn't he a bright fellow? I am beginning to suspect that the real konfab died long ago and some con artist took over the account.
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Babby doesn't know what a whistleblower is does he?
 
Neptuner said:
"Hlubi-Majola also hit back at Solidarity’s claims that transformation was partially to blame for Eskom’s predicament, stating that many black engineers were more qualified than their white colleagues."

Eskom's Engineer in Training (EIT) program and level of skill/unskilled ratio currently isn't conducive to shape good power plant engineers or maintainers it hasn't been for a long time now. Skilled labour who come from outside like Sasol enter and exit as they can't adapt to the cowboy style of decision making. Some stay due to the economic climate.

Here's the thing you can't have a team of 10 inexperienced and 3 experienced engineers. The ratio is not conducive for learning and imparting critical skills. The 3 engineers will be overloaded with work and mostly likely seek employment elsewhere. Also power plant knowledge is highly sort after which makes moving abroad a popular choice.

Sourcing skills outside won't resolve this problem. You need a healthy balance of influx of trainees vs the experience and highly experienced engineers. The same applies for operating and maintenance departments. You mess with this ratios you stuffed.

BBBEE has transformed Eskom for the last 20years to a state where engineers with 10 years experience today equates to 3 years experience of an engineer in a highly conducive learning environment. There's no comparison really. The question here is who are they really fooling by creating these source platforms, they not addressing the elephant in the room BBBEE...
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You've hit the nail on the head of one of the biggest problems Eskom is facing at a ground level that is increasingly difficult to fix.

In any engineering sector, the process of individual growth and skills transfer is simple. You have the experienced senior engineers with all the institutional knowledge, practices and skills. They work with upcoming engineers to transfer that knowledge so that when they retire or move on, the next generation steps in and does the same, rinse repeat.

Eskom bypassed this process with the transformation wave and retrenchments it did. The senior engineers were forced out, immediately pushing the next generation into their position. Those people are now holding senior titles, but they weren't ready and have lost out on years of mentorship and handover that was supposed to happen. Those that are actually senior are spread far too thin.

How do you recover institutional knowledge once it has left? Well, you can't really, you have to rebuild it from scratch or bring the people back in. Depending on the complexity of the projects (and Eskom is extremely complex), you could never recover from such a blow, perpetually stuck in a death spiral.

This is exactly why companies fight fiercely to hold onto their senior engineers, it is an incredibly costly and lengthy process to fully replace them. Lose enough and you no longer have a functioning company.
 
What about the big elephant in the room?

We were told that we will experience less load shedding this month because they are giving priority to maintaining the power stations. That narrative has changed to the skill set required to do maintenance is not at Eskom.

We are being taken for a ride, they can hire as much as they want, heck, hire all 300 of them for all I care, the fact is that our power stations are done for. We need new generation capacity, be it coal power stations, gas or solar systems. I am waiting to hear the next excuses when the engineers, having been paid all the money, start saying there is nothing more that can be done for almost all the power stations.

Until we face the facts head-on we are eternally doomed.
 
AmandaL said:
We need to get Andre De Ruyter to focus on conversation with the people of SA. The Government has long ago lost the realization that they are there to deliver a service to the people. The citizens will strengthen the hands of Andre to do what needs to be done and safeguard him against interference from government and their failed policies. I have been publicly advocating this for quite dome time now and it has been an urgent step for a long time. Get Andre to speak with us. He as the CEO of Eskom needs to listen and converse with us the people who pay them.
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Do you think he has not? Thats where all the skill shortages and lack of maintenace are being highlighted. His predecessors did not disclose jacksh**, he is being open and frank, many political apointees including opposition call for his head for being that honest as its a "indicator of his failure".

No, this is not in his hands, this is for the people to wake up. The only ones they can blame are themselves for democraticly voting in the corruption and mismanagement and not stopping it by speaking at the polls and showing their dissatisfaction. The real culprits, are those who are happy to keep mismanagment, corruption, nepotism into power and those chickens are now not just roosting but crowing at the incompetance in the way this has been handled.

Will people listen though....
 
Blackhand said:
You've hit the nail on the head of one of the biggest problems Eskom is facing at a ground level that is increasingly difficult to fix.

In any engineering sector, the process of individual growth and skills transfer is simple. You have the experienced senior engineers with all the institutional knowledge, practices and skills. They work with upcoming engineers to transfer that knowledge so that when they retire or move on, the next generation steps in and does the same, rinse repeat.

Eskom bypassed this process with the transformation wave and retrenchments it did. The senior engineers were forced out, immediately pushing the next generation into their position. Those people are now holding senior titles, but they weren't ready and have lost out on years of mentorship and handover that was supposed to happen. Those that are actually senior are spread far too thin.

How do you recover institutional knowledge once it has left? Well, you can't really, you have to rebuild it from scratch or bring the people back in. Depending on the complexity of the projects (and Eskom is extremely complex), you could never recover from such a blow, perpetually stuck in a death spiral.

This is exactly why companies fight fiercely to hold onto their senior engineers, it is an incredibly costly and lengthy process to fully replace them. Lose enough and you no longer have a functioning company.
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It's a death spiral indeed. The real problem will come when IPP's start headhunting the few skilled staff left in Eskom. Thats when things will really start going bonkers, will make stage6 look like a joke.
 
Dups! said:
What about the big elephant in the room?

We were told that we will experience less load shedding this month because they are giving priority to maintaining the power stations. That narrative has changed to the skill set required to do maintenance is not at Eskom.

We are being taken for a ride, they can hire as much as they want, heck, hire all 300 of them for all I care, the fact is that our power stations are done for. We need new generation capacity, be it coal power stations, gas or solar systems. I am waiting to hear the next excuses when the engineers, having been paid all the money, start saying there is nothing more that can be done for almost all the power stations.

Until we face the facts head-on we are eternally doomed.
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This is a common misconception that these coal plants are done for, it all BS. These plants have not been maintained with the criticality required, it's plagued with school boy mistakes. Let an IPP purchase a few of them and employ their own management teams and resources, you'll see an immediate turn-around.

We recently saw in Europe old coal power plants started with a twist of a key. Look at Sasol, after so many decades still producing fuel...
 
AmandaL said:
We need to get Andre De Ruyter to focus on conversation with the people of SA. The Government has long ago lost the realization that they are there to deliver a service to the people. The citizens will strengthen the hands of Andre to do what needs to be done and safeguard him against interference from government and their failed policies. I have been publicly advocating this for quite dome time now and it has been an urgent step for a long time. Get Andre to speak with us. He as the CEO of Eskom needs to listen and converse with us the people who pay them.
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LOL

Andre will be removed before he could say: "Fellow South Africans" ... Eskom implements government policy, the board is obligated to hold him to this. So unless the BBBEE act comes before the parliament or a bill is passed like the DA is currently attempting, there is nothing Andre can do besides enter an empty room and shout: "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!" ...
 
"uphill battle against political leaders over the “inclusivity” of its skills procurement plans." WARNING! More incoming low IQ, High salaried, matric maths and science failing, politically connected and very uneducated and backwards morons! Must be nice to be living as a anc cad(av)er in the new SA. You don't need to have any qualifications to get a well paying job, just just need to know anotger corrupt cad(av)er in the anc and you are set for life. Hell, you can pitch up for work with a complete lobotomy and still get a wage, because you'll never earn it. I honestly cannot wait for the anc to lose elections, we'll witness more than a million cad(av)ers suddenly facing jail time and being unemployed.
 
emperornemesis said:
"uphill battle against political leaders over the “inclusivity” of its skills procurement plans." WARNING! More incoming low IQ, High salaried, matric maths and science failing, politically connected and very uneducated and backwards morons! Must be nice to be living as a anc cad(av)er in the new SA. You don't need to have any qualifications to get a well paying job, just just need to know anotger corrupt cad(av)er in the anc and you are set for life. Hell, you can pitch up for work with a complete lobotomy and still get a wage, because you'll never earn it. I honestly cannot wait for the anc to lose elections, we'll witness more than a million cad(av)ers suddenly facing jail time and being unemployed.
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to me its easy ..ANC lose election and you put somebody that is not politically connected at head of SARS and you can easily prosecute all these cadre /corrupt politician's...How many of them do you think really have their tax affairs in orders.They dont have the IQ to understand tax.
 
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