Have you heard about stage 10 load shedding? It’s where Eskom takes the spark out of your relationship.
At first, this joke was hilarious, just like Eskom, Esgaan.
Now, after two weeks of trying to outsmart the load shedding schedule so I can do the laundry and feed my family, it’s just exhausting.
I hear the exhaustion in the voice of the guy on duty at my security provider – he’s phoned me daily to check if everything is okay when the alarm goes off. I tell him it’s just the power coming back on, and he laughs wistfully and says: “Maybe the government will fix it soon ...”
It is just not funny any more.
What’s even less funny is the awful damage that is being done in this country due to the mess that is Eskom management. We are losing money faster than we can say Eskom. We hear about the 3 000 Eskom employees doing business with their employer, but not a word about their immediate dismissal. We hear that it’s going to take government at least 14 days to get back to us about this mess. Just to point out the obvious – this government has known about this particular crisis for a long time, yet those in power seem to think we all own this problem.
It’s time for the grown-ups to take centre stage. Tough decisions need to be made by people tough enough to stand up to the trade unions, to the vested interests in the fossil energy sector, to dirty coal.
Read: Want clarity on Eskom? We'll get back to you in two weeks: Ghordan
Look out of your window. See that bright sunshine? It’s free. It will never run out. Its energy does not disappear at night (yes, Donald Trump is really the only person who thinks that).
Now is the time to invest heavily and properly in renewable energy. Now is the time to reskill workers for our new reality, a future where energy does not come out of the ground. Now is the time to offer proper rebates to customers so that they can take their homes off the electricity grid and instead pump their excess energy into the grid.
At the moment, two of the fastest-growing careers in the US are solar panel installers and wind turbine technicians. In the UK, you can go off the grid with proper planning and sell your excess energy back to the local municipality.
We need to be looking at these alternatives not as lovely ideas, but as workable alternatives to the bind we find ourselves in. But this will only happen when there is political will, and political will that is not beholden to other agendas.
One last joke: What do you call that feeling when the power comes back on? An electrogasm.