We are sorry: Eskom

Arthur said:
I hear you, Koosi. But it's a helluva lot more than a handful. You can't run the massive systems at Eskom for more than a month with only a handful of competents. But a bunch of incompetents in critical top- and second-tier line management positions can ruin it for everyone. That is the problem at Eskom, and it was imposed on Eskom by the ruling party. A poorly skilled or incapable lower-level worker is one symptom of a management problem.

Of course I recognize that Eskom is how infested with incompetents. But we should also recognise that there are still many smart and capable people there. If there weren't, the entire system would have collapsed years ago.

Let's hope that this current crisis doesn't so demoralize them that they end up leaving anyway. If they did we'd really be up the creek without a paddle.
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I agree in that we should not be attacking the workers at Eskom. The higher management and the ANC should be hung at dawn, though.
 
Splinter said:
I agree in that we should not be attacking the workers at Eskom. The higher management and the ANC should be hung at dawn, though.
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Good luck with that - they're protected by tax-payer funded VIP protection services.
 
Debeer165 said:
Are.... Are you trolling?
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It's a fair question these continuing fallacies that black people are inherently incompetent are annoying. And yes, we know that when they refer to AA appointees they mean anyone not white.

Yes Eskom has appointed lots of incapable women to fill quotas but that's not an excuse to paint every of colour the same. Add to this that some of those "competent" non-BEE (as if there's such a thing as a BEE person) left the company because they couldn't see themselves reporting to black people or even working with them as equals. Eskom problem are not reducible to this thoughtless "BEE" shoutings, they're a combination of issues.

But I digress, let the peanut gallery continue please. I apologize for my annoyance at thinly veiled racist remarks.
 
Exactly, Splinter.

The instruction to only do statutory maintenance comes from the sole shareholder. Our elected government.

Of course seasoned Eskom engineers know exactly what this means: basically, it's killing the plant, like running a car engine into the ground.

They'd hoped Medupi and Kusile would be coming on stream by about now, so overdue critical maintenance on other units can be performed. But that hasn't happened - M and K are waay behind schedule, delays caused by crappy supplier management (contaminated by political connections), shoddy qualcon (contaminated by political connections), and above all the workerist strike-inducing policies of the current regime.
 
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OrbitalDawn said:
Why? What did he say that's wrong?
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Basically the fact that it seems that he attempted to devalue the argument of anti BEE as thinly veiled racism by saying that the supporters see all people of X color as being incompetent.
This is not the case, as it should be obvious that all races have competent workers, but these do not seem to make up the majority of BEE appointments at Eskom.
 
... not to speak of the well-nigh R100-billion over-budget on the two new baseload stations. Yes, that's one hundred billion with a b rand more than the original budgeted sum.

Staggering.
 
Debeer165 said:
Basically the fact that it seems that he attempted to devalue the argument of anti BEE as thinly veiled racism by saying that the supporters see all people of X color as being incompetent.
This is not the case, as it should be obvious that all races have competent workers, but these do not seem to make up the majority of BEE appointments at Eskom.
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Well, I've noticed it, too. A lot of the ostensibly anti-BEE views are really just anti-black views. Not talking about you or anyone in here specifically, just generally on the forum and in real life.

There's a whole lot of unfair assuming going on. Like assuming a black person that's appointed is automatically a BEE appointment (because who else would get appointed under BEE, right?), or that any BEE appointment is automatically an incompetent person.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Well, I've noticed it, too. A lot of the ostensibly anti-BEE views are really just anti-black views. Not talking about you or anyone in here specifically, just generally on the forum and in real life.

There's a whole lot of unfair assuming going on. Like assuming a black person that's appointed is automatically a BEE appointment (because who else would get appointed under BEE, right?), or that any BEE appointment is automatically an incompetent person.
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Oh no, I do agree with you when the view is phrased in that way. Many do simply use it as an excuse, and that is another issue all on it's own. However, the BEE system is still an issue and does sadly lead to incompetent employment. No 100% exclusive or inclusive statements, but I do feel that anything more than single digit % incompetence is more than can be acceptable.
 
Debeer165 said:
Oh no, I do agree with you when the view is phrased in that way. Many do simply use it as an excuse, and that is another issue all on it's own. However, the BEE system is still an issue and does sadly lead to incompetent employment. No 100% exclusive or inclusive statements, but I do feel that anything more than single digit % incompetence is more than can be acceptable.
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Well, I recall one of the BEE-related issues in Eskom's case is about the choice of coal suppliers, add-on services and the like. Where they opted for partners that simply aren't up to scratch. Although political pressure and interference likely also played a big role.
 
R13... said:
Yes Eskom has appointed lots of incapable women to fill quotas but that's not an excuse to paint every of colour the same. Add to this that some of those "competent" non-BEE (as if there's such a thing as a BEE person) left the company because they couldn't see themselves reporting to black people or even working with them as equals. Eskom problem are not reducible to this thoughtless "BEE" shoutings, they're a combination of issues.
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If this is not the case, and you are correct, why are we then in this monumental crisis?
 
kingrob said:
If this is not the case, and you are correct, why are we then in this monumental crisis?
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Mismanagement, corruption, ineptitude...

Remember, Eskom has been warning since the 90s that they won't have enough capacity. It's the government's bungling, policy-wise that caused this more than anything.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
There's a whole lot of unfair assuming going on. Like assuming a black person that's appointed is automatically a BEE appointment (because who else would get appointed under BEE, right?), or that any BEE appointment is automatically an incompetent person.
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Yep! It must really piss-off competent black people to be lumped with the BEE mob just because of their skin colour. I wonder why that is?
 
Packer said:
Yep! It must really piss-off competent black people to be lumped with the BEE mob just because of their skin colour. I wonder why that is?
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Same reason every single white gets labeled a racist perhaps?
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Well, I've noticed it, too. A lot of the ostensibly anti-BEE views are really just anti-black views. Not talking about you or anyone in here specifically, just generally on the forum and in real life.

There's a whole lot of unfair assuming going on. Like assuming a black person that's appointed is automatically a BEE appointment (because who else would get appointed under BEE, right?), or that any BEE appointment is automatically an incompetent person.
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Governments goal with BEE was to have black people represented in management, specifically senior management. Because of this, young bright black people who have the right qualifications are often very quickly moved into roles that normally require 20 years of experience. By doing this you have people who do not know what they are doing. I can give an example. I work for an engineering consultancy, we had some meetings with Eskom about a bulk materials conveying system. The 'Senior Manager' who was representing Eskom was a young black person with 2 years experience and a masters degree in electrical engineering. She did not have the technical experience or respect of her colleagues.

On our team we had a equally bright black young engineer, with a masters degree in mechanical engineering. His title is 'Junior Project Engineer' and he will be trained and will get real experience under his belt and be competent in a future role like the above. Taking shortcuts doesn't work, and that is a lot of peoples beef with the execution of BEE that you find in State run companies and some private ones too. It used to be that you needed about 15 years experience to be a principal engineer, now 2 or three will do if you are black at Eskom.

On top of this we have completely unqualified people who are members of a political party with fake degrees etc being responsible for the executive level decisions of core infrastructure companies.

And on another note, we have no real technicians anymore. We now have Universities of Technology, and everyone must be an engineer. Technicians who are properly qualified would go a long way in the maintenance of companies like Eskom, Transnet and SAA, as well as in the private sector. Also, in the ideal world, you would have a 1-2-6 system, something like that (1Engineer-3 Technologists-6 Technicians) This would help a lot more people get out of poverty than the current system of 1 engineering degreed manager with no engineering experience, 2 technician trained engineers running things, and 7 semi-skilled labour.

In some cases, there are no black people with the right qualification, so the standard gets dropped eg: Eskom engineers with an N6 instead of BEng/BTech/Ndip. And the frequent well connected ANC buddy.

This bleeds into the tender system to get a BEE quota, with people like Julius Malema running engineering companies responsible for public infrastructure projects. The frustration of the system is because it's broken, not because of 'racism'.

I'd also like to point out that a lot of black people who 'make the cut' feel the same way. When you have a system where a white girl with a distinction in every subject gets rejected from medical school in the Cape, and at the same time Stellenbosch University has an extended 7 year program for BEE qualifying students with 40 percent there is a problem.
 
frailwings said:
Governments goal with BEE was to have black people represented in management, specifically senior management. Because of this, young bright black people who have the right qualifications are often very quickly moved into roles that normally require 20 years of experience. By doing this you have people who do not know what they are doing. I can give an example. I work for an engineering consultancy, we had some meetings with Eskom about a bulk materials conveying system. The 'Senior Manager' who was representing Eskom was a young black person with 2 years experience and a masters degree in electrical engineering. She did not have the technical experience or respect of her colleagues.

On our team we had a equally bright black young engineer, with a masters degree in mechanical engineering. His title is 'Junior Project Engineer' and he will be trained and will get real experience under his belt and be competent in a future role like the above. Taking shortcuts doesn't work, and that is a lot of peoples beef with the execution of BEE that you find in State run companies and some private ones too. It used to be that you needed about 15 years experience to be a principal engineer, now 2 or three will do if you are black at Eskom.

On top of this we have completely unqualified people who are members of a political party with fake degrees etc being responsible for the executive level decisions of core infrastructure companies.

And on another note, we have no real technicians anymore. We now have Universities of Technology, and everyone must be an engineer. Technicians who are properly qualified would go a long way in the maintenance of companies like Eskom, Transnet and SAA, as well as in the private sector. Also, in the ideal world, you would have a 1-2-6 system, something like that (1Engineer-3 Technologists-6 Technicians) This would help a lot more people get out of poverty than the current system of 1 engineering degreed manager with no engineering experience, 2 technician trained engineers running things, and 7 semi-skilled labour.

In some cases, there are no black people with the right qualification, so the standard gets dropped eg: Eskom engineers with an N6 instead of BEng/BTech/Ndip. And the frequent well connected ANC buddy.

This bleeds into the tender system to get a BEE quota, with people like Julius Malema running engineering companies responsible for public infrastructure projects. The frustration of the system is because it's broken, not because of 'racism'.

I'd also like to point out that a lot of black people who 'make the cut' feel the same way. When you have a system where a white girl with a distinction in every subject gets rejected from medical school in the Cape, and at the same time Stellenbosch University has an extended 7 year program for BEE qualifying students with 40 percent there is a problem.
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Thanks for clarifying that.

That is exactly what I meant with my "BEE" comment. People are moved too quickly into high posts without having any good and solid experience...

I have high respect for a black person for obtaining qualifications for an engineer and so on, but really, to put an inexperienced person into a post where experience is a must, you're only asking for problems, skin color excluded.

I have NO issue in working for a black person. Most of the technicians I've encountered on my travels through life also include blacks - with a different skill set than that which I have, and I absolutely respect them for that.

From my POV BEE fails when an inexperienced person is moved into a top post without having any experience. Rather keep the experienced person (or appoint one if there's one) and have the experienced person tutor the newcomer.

This way critical skills will be passed on without the need for trial-and-error as is the case today.
 
Well put Libs... trial and error. So often the case all over - even with inexperienced white varsity leavers - mostly because skills have left.
 
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