I am generally a very patient person, and I can appreciate all the challenges that government faces, but the loadshedding nonsense is working on my very last nerve now.
And the ongoing revelations of how Eskom squanders our tax money, just rubs rough sea salt into an open wound.
Just last week I read about an affidavit in which Eskom CEO, Andre de Ruyter, revealed that the company was paying a tender contractor R26 for one roll of single-ply toilet paper, R51 per black refuse bag and R21 for a litre of milk.
Yes, I know, you had to read that again, just to make sure you didn’t misunderstand it the first time.
We were paying someone R21 for a bog roll to be used by Eskom staff, while looking for the cheapest possible alternatives for our own bums.
Toilet paper is the perfect metaphor, because Eskom is taking us for a gat.
It also reflects the disaster that Eskom has become because of the ongoing sporadic darkness that they dump all of us into.
It is a sickening thought that we have been paying so much for electricity over the years and the tariffs continue to increase year after year, while we don’t get much by way of returns.
As I’ve mentioned before, it is one of those inflated investments that we as citizens are forced to make, while our investment is being flushed down the drain.
In the corporate world, we as the investors would have either withdrawn our money a long time ago, or demanded changes to the management, but when it comes to state-owned enterprises, these are not options that we have.
Luckily it looks like the president has now finally also had enough.
He surprised everyone last week, when he announced changes to our Electricity Regulation Act.
And while it is long overdue, I suppose we should be grateful that it’s better late than never.
This means that before the end of the year, we should have a few private companies producing electricity and selling it to government.
Eventually it could mean that individuals will be able to do the same with electricity from their private solar panels.
As a developing country, we are well behind the curve when it comes to the generation of solar power.
And while this amendment is a sort of admission-of-failure from government, Eskom’s ongoing troubles are finally forcing us into the right direction.
Besides the pollution issues and the obvious need to move away from a resource that is as finite as coal and oil, solar power has done wonders for the energy needs of other countries in a very short space of time.
For example, Vietnam was able to turn around its precarious power position in under two years, simply by adopting a very aggressive renewable power programme.
For a while it seemed like using renewable sources to generate our electricity needs made perfect sense to everybody, except our political leaders.
I hope that Ramaphosa’s decision doesn’t remain as limited as it appears and that we can progress towards complete reliance on a mix of solar, wind and wave energy in the near future.
We have enough to worry about.
R26 toilet rolls and loadshedding shouldn’t be some of it.