This is why you hate Eskom the most
Eskom, South Africa’s power utility, has become the most vilified company in South Africa – although in Gauteng, Sanral must run a close second having announced revised e-toll tariffs on Wednesday (20 May).
Eskom has moved into a daily load shedding schedule in recent weeks, mostly lasting 12 hours, which has caused a seething rage within the country.
On a macro-economic level, power shortages have curbed economic growth by as much as 10%, while also preventing mass employment opportunities, according to Dawie Roodt, chief economist at Efficient Group.
Roodt said that the country’s estimated economic expansion of 2% this year could have been at least 1 percentage point higher had it not been for load shedding.
“If we’d had enough electricity since 2007 and it was not a limiting factor, the economy could have been about 10% bigger than it actually was by the end of 2014.
“That is more than 300 billion rand ($25.3 billion), or more than a million job opportunities,” the economist said.
A presentation by the department of public enterprises to parliament at the end of March said that power cuts implemented by Eskom cost South Africa’s economy between $1.7 billion (R20 billion) and $6.8 billion (R80.6 billion) a month.
Roodt said late last year that Eskom’s blackouts had cost South Africa as much as R300 billion since 2008.
Earlier this month, Eskom made an urgent application to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to increase the electricity tariff by 25.3% for the 2015/2016 financial year.
“Consumers will simply not be able to absorb an increase of this magnitude without very serious consequences,” Roodt said.
Such is the rage from South Africans, that it is impossible to scour channels such as Twitter, Facebook and even local forums, without bumping into a rant, complaint or funny reaction to Eskom.
The company has even prompted a ‘I hate Eskom‘ Facebook page, which plays host to many of these rants.
Sifting through the many complaints, BusinessTech has identified several recurring topics being vented about by angered South Africans on Eskom’s social media channels – as well as some of the more humorous responses to the ongoing power crisis.
Peak road traffic
Load shedding has led to heavy traffic all over the country during peak hour as traffic lights are shut down.
- ‘Not a single traffic light working in Sandton. Valuable driving lessons for the apocalypse, “powered” by Eskom.’
- ‘Traffic in the suburbs. Proudly brought to you by Eskom.’
- ‘Why do they start over peak traffic?And not throughout the day? Another 4pm start for #loadshedding’
- ‘Can you not at least arrange pointsmen then to direct traffic during loadshedding?!’
- ‘Do some load shedding during the day! Starting between 4 and 5pm is disrespectful to the citizens of this country as they have to deal with the PEAK TRAFFIC and getting home in the DARK’
A meme playing off of Disney’s The Lion King
Bonuses amid crisis
Eskom has been criticized for paying its executives bonuses, which the general public believes are undeserved.
Eskom paid its top executives a total of R60 million in the 2014 financial year, up from R57.4 million the year before.
The company has already seen the back of another CEO, and chairman in 2015, having reached a settlement with Tshediso Matonaon Monday, following suspension earlier in the year.
His replacement, Brian Molefe said that any further Eskom bonus would be in line with policy.
- ‘Pathetic service. Top brass line their pockets, constant price hikes without even getting the services of having electricity. Constant load shedding. Another poorly run government company that can’t even provide the basic service. Incompetence at the highest degree.’
- ‘Eskom going for 6 days of no load shedding – Do they get an extra million bonus now or a cookie.’
- ‘He’s been there Ten minutes and already lining up his bonus scheme.’
- ‘Why do Eskom employees get bonuses when there is a power crisis? Why don’t Eskom have the skilled employees to complete proper quality work? The perception out their is that Eskom is doing unethical business.’
Playing up the large amount of outages the country faces.
Meals at night
In recent weeks, Eskom has moved to load shed in earnest from 4pm in the afternoon, mostly at stage 2, causing frustration for those people coming home from work wanting to cook a hot dinner.
- ‘Was in a good mood for cooking and Eskom just had to ruin it’
- ‘Noooo. Pls no Eskom…I’m still cooking!!!‘
- ‘Let’s see if I can win the race with Eskom and finish cooking before they decide to go to stage 4000 and switch me of.’
- ‘I understand that we will always receive terrible service delivery in South Africa from non private institutions. But can the load shedding schedules be alternated. I simply cannot afford buying takeaways anymore and we need to do homework in the evenings.’
- ‘This is apsolutely insane. Load shedding is making my husband and my son starve. We cannot cook, and cannot continue to buy take aways.’
Some memes try to look at a positive angle
Schedule rotation
Citizens have complained that Eskom is not sticking to its schedule as advertised on its website and as the company is forced to move between stages at very short notice.
In April, Eskom said it was planning to make changes to its load shedding stages, splitting the current stage 3 into two stages.
- ‘An engineering / business degree is needed to understand electricity tariffs. The person in the street has no chance,’ bemoaned energy expert Chris Yelland on Twitter.
- ‘If you thought mobile phone & data tariiffs & options were confusing, take a look at #Eskom’s electricity tariffs’.
- ‘Pissed off that Eskom isn’t sticking to their schedule when the power’s supposed to be out. Bought candles & everything! #wasteofmoney.’
- ‘People who complain about @Eskom_SA inefficiency but still can’t/won’t read the #loadshedding schedule are just as bad as Eskom IMO.’
Meme poking fun at Eskom’s complicated load shedding schedule
Damaged equipment and business woes
People have taken to social media to question the possibility for SA business to sue Eskom for loss of income based on the right to basic municipal services, while others merely want compensation for broken appliances.
- ‘Eskom! When will you learn, technically, electrical equipment does not withstand your on/off. Clients suffer.’
- ‘@Eskom, Please make up your mind which stage to be on. We are running a business and trying to work around your schedule. It does not help that you give us a moments notice when you change you change from stage 1 to stage 2 and not informing business timeously.’
- ‘@Eskom_SA which destroys consumer electronics of thousands of rands due to power surges. We can’t always turn equipment off as we’re at work.
- ‘With all this load shedding our fridges are getting damaged and we don’t get to do what normal people do at night. Should our children eat at 11 at night?????’
This particular meme describes a new “multi-plug” for use during load shedding
Other dangers
One complaint on HelloPeter painted an even more worrying picture for load shedding, claiming that it also posed other dangers – even going so far as to call it life threatening.
- ‘Load shedding, besides being inconvenient is dangerous. A friend’s niece was driving her scooter home in the dark in load shedding. It was so dark she couldn’t see the traffic lights and went through one and was hit by a car. She is in hospital. Load shedding is causing small business to suffer on top of the dangers. How on earth are we supposed to survive with this absolute incompetence?’
The notion that load shedding was creating a more dangerous environment was echoed by Cape Town mayoral committee member for safety and security, JP Smith.
Smith said the city has asked for areas with high criminal activity – such as Manenberg, Ottery, and Hanover Park – to be considered for load shedding exemptions, following attacks last weekend.
According to Smith, metro police gang and drug task teams work under tough conditions, which are only made worse when street lights in these areas go out at night due to power cuts.
More on Eskom
Can angry South Africans sue Eskom?
Eskom power crisis has cost SA 1 million jobs
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