We are sorry: Eskom

Hey Eskom:

／ﾌﾌ 　　　　　　 　ム｀ヽ
/ ノ) 　　　　　　　　）　ヽ
/ ｜　　( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°）ノ⌒（ゝ.,ノ
/　ﾉ⌒7⌒ヽーく　 ＼　／
丶＿ ノ ｡　　 ノ､　｡|/
　　 `ヽ `ー-’人`ーﾉ
　　　 丶 ￣ _人’彡ﾉ
......DO YOU EVEN LIFT?

Also seriously, screw you guys.
 
Lean a little about the challenges of managing a creaky power system in this Eskom video. It's worth a watch. The dudette on the right is the manager of the national control centre.

[video=youtube;S-XzkJpEcEQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-XzkJpEcEQ&list=UU7zHWWPaa4bJJWt59VSw91g[/video]
 
From my posts in another thread:

Arthur said:
You know, Eskom is being unfairly blamed in this fiasco.

There are tens of thousands of highly committed and competent people at Eskom, who do an incredible job with aging plant and infrastructure.

Ironically, their woes stem from SA's 'honeymoon' period - the 5-6 years after 1994 when all new projects were put on ice because Eskom was going to be broken up and sold off.

That is not Eskom's fault. It made the case, but it was not listened to.

It is the fault of our political overlords.

If I were an Eskom board member, I would make damn sure just about every worker, manager, engineer got a huge bonus. These people are performing a miracle holding together a very creaky system - and that creakiness is not of their making.

In the real world, we should be deeply grateful to the thousands of professionals at Eskom who are managing an incredibly difficult situation with great skill.

They deserve medals, in my view.
Click to expand...

In reply to Gary's Q re poor maintenance:
Arthur said:
On the maintenance, they had no other choice. The instruction to run at the red line comes from their political masters. I know for a fact that Eskom management wanted to bring down baseload systems for essential maintenance and refurbishment, and their only shareholder refused.

They didn't get rid of competent people. When top experts saw the reality of political control, they left of their own accord, and who can blame them. They knew it was a sinking ship, and that they would be blamed for the faults of others.

Seriously. This catastrophe is caused by the State, not Eskom.
Click to expand...

And what about putting incompetents in key positions?
Arthur said:
Again, that type of AA is imposed on them by the State. It is not homegrown.

Until Eskom was nationalised in 2002, it ran a very sane fair employment policy. That policy was introduced and managed in the 1980s by Herman Edeling, a world class engineer and manager, who also headed up both generation and transmission, building it into one of the best systems in any utility anywhere on the planet.

I have heard from his own mouth how this worked, and how the State increasingly imposed impossible and irresponsible targets.

Why do you think Brian Gilbertson, a very capable private sector manager, lasted less than two years as GM? He saw the problems were not internal (he could fix them if they were) but external.
Click to expand...

I know we all want someone to blame. And we are rightly angry.

But let's not blame the wrong people. We need to educate our fellow South Africans that the real problem lies with our political masters.
 
Last edited:
“Eskom apologises to the nation for the inconvenience of the past few weeks,” Matona told journalists in Johannesburg.
Click to expand...

Oops, seems that my foot has found its way to your sack - South Africa apologises, and its going to pain you more than I.

How can ESKOM apologise? A person can apologise, but an entity has no mouth, Eskom is driven by a person - and that tw@t is accountable.
 
Bugger-all
Electricity
Everywhere

Your racist creation will be your downfall.
 
Badprop_za said:
Apology accepted if all execs pay back there excessive bonuses and use that for maintenance.

The excuse over the weekend was that diesel reserves were running low? :wtf: Yes levels dropped excessively overnight without anyone noticing. Like no one noticed the cracks of the tower that collapsed.

Everyone is tired of hearing apologies and excuses. Do your freakin jobs and apologizing, etc would not be required!
Click to expand...

Are the exec's still getting bonuses at tough times like these??

I would love to know what went wrong with Eskom, was it that they were denied the chance to expand their power grid, if they had such plans, or did they just sit and not plan for the expanding population?
 
Arthur said:
I know we all want someone to blame. And we are rightly angry.

But let's not blame the wrong people. We need to educate our fellow South Africans that the real problem lies with our political masters.
Click to expand...
Amen to that!!

All this BEE bollox aside which no doubt contributed in some way or another to the decline, be it maintenance/planning or whatever,, the ANC government was warned over a decade ago by ESKOM management that new power stations were needed (urgently) to be able to fulfill the rising demand with more and more households being powered, and with a steadily growing economy.
They said Nah, the gravy tastes to good.

Thabo Mbeki even went on national telly and apologized to the nation during the first round of blackouts acknowledging it was their fault.

One would have expected some massive collective effort, driven by the state in response to this, unifying state/business/labour/private sector in definitively dealing with this epic blunder, but no!

All we got was blundering policy, militant workers that held the country to ransom resulting in massive delays in new plants, poor workmanship from tenderpreneurship (linked to ANC Luthuli House) and an absolute refusal by the state to allow private companies to get involved and feed power into the grid, or go on their own to provide power.

All this while Eskom blows a billion rand a month on keeping their backup diesel generators running.
 
Yes, Sneeky.

We need to do all we can to spread the Truth About the Current Crisis.

No South African who cares about truth or justice can sit back while Eskom picks up the blame for a crisis it didn't cause. Their people are doing an absolutely incredible job under almost impossible circumstances not of their own making.

We must hold Zuma's and the ANC's feet to the fire over this crisis. Not Eskom - they are a victim, just like you and me and the rest of us.
 
Being sorry means to stop taking a bonus this year:twisted:
 
Don't worry Eskom. I've set reminders!

Screenshot%202014-12-08%2016.35.42.png


:(
 
Vice said:
Being sorry means to stop taking a bonus this year:twisted:
Click to expand...
No!

Eskom employees deserve their bonus. They are doing an absolutely amazing job trying to hold together a system they didn't break. Pretty much everyone is going beyond the call of duty to try to keep the whole system from crashing.

Learn the facts and put the blame where it belongs.
 
Arthur said:
Eskom employees deserve their bonus. They are doing an absolutely amazing job trying to hold together a system they didn't break.

Learn the facts and put the blame where it belongs.
Click to expand...
I fully agree with you, Arthur.

However the Board of Eskom must also be held responsible.
 
MickeyD said:
I fully agree with you, Arthur.

However the Board of Eskom must also be held responsible.
Click to expand...
Yes, the Board are now appointed by the sole shareholder, ie the State, represented by the Minister of Public Enterprises. That only happened from 2002 when the State nationalised Eskom.

That is the mechanism the State has used to bring a once magnificent organisation to its knees.
 
Arthur said:
Yes, the Board are now appointed by the sole shareholder, ie the State, represented by the Minister of Public Enterprises. That only happened from 2002 when the State nationalised Eskom.

That is the mechanism the State has used to bring a once magnificent organisation to its knees.
Click to expand...
And don't forget the Teflon coated Minister of Energy...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X