ESKOM and Electricity: The Truth

By The Real Realist

Sitting comfortably in my exile, I looked on aghast as the very worst of my predictions came true over the weekend, when Eskom failed to supply the mining industry with sufficient power to keep operations running. My mind flashed back to a story I wrote on the original ‘Why South Africa is Crap’ blog, which preceded this one, about when I visited Cape Town and was handed an ‘Eskom passport’ telling me how to save power and when power cuts would be etc. etc.

So I can’t say I was particularly shocked – I mean, after all, who would really have expected anything else? Who, apart from the demented liberals, would have ever thought that South Africa would end up any different from the rest of Africa? Not me.

Chatting by phone to Whites still in South Africa, I was struck by three things: firstly, their passive acceptance of it (“we will get by’) — for which I just feel disgust; secondly their crazy idea that buying generators will help them out of this mess (you clots, what happens when the petrol and diesel supplies become so intermittent that you can’t power your generators. And Don’t think it won’t happen, it will); and thirdly, the most astonishing thing (in fact, the only thing about this whole affair which did astonish me) was the claim that the power outages were occurring “because South Africa’s economy is booming and power production could not keep up.”

Now that one floored me. Crikey, of all the strange excuses I have ever heard, that one was the best.

The reality is that Eskom’s production has been dropping, directly because they have fired all the competent Whites and appointed Blacks – or, in many cases, no-one, in some sort of strange belief that skilled Whites were not necessary to keep things going. Hau, the machines, they will work without the White racists, was obviously the rationale.

So, even if the economy was growing (which I strongly doubt, given the simple unemployment figures which continue to increase year upon year, not exactly a healthy sign) is it actually a case of Eskom not being able to keep up?

There are two aspects to this question: firstly, if the scenario were true, then the crisis is due to Affirmative Action incompetence in government and Eskom (surprise, surprise). They got rid of Whitey, thought hau, now we have the money, and the machines she works, and that was that. Now of course, everything has gone to crap, just like the rest of Africa.

But, and this is the second, and most telling part, the reality is that in fact Eskom’s production has not been increasing, but rather declining!

On the 1 February last year - during the maintenance cycle - Eskom’s output was more than 32,000mW. But last Thursday – the day before the mines went bang – Eskom’s output was 27,000mW – because large numbers of power generating stations were out of service. The total capacity loss was over 9,000mW, enough to power three cities the size of Johannesburg.

In other words, the reality is that Eskom is not, as the lunatics want to claim, “unable to keep up with growth” but, actually, is unable to even maintain production, and the decline in output is the real cause of the outages, Now, go figure.

As shown on Carte Blanche, even the claim that the reason why the power stations were out was because of “wet coal” (bizarre that this has never happened before, it must be something I missed, I mean I am sure it has rained before. Yes? Or did I miss it?) is rubbish, as it was clear from the Carte Blanche visuals that there was simply no coal either in reserve at the power stations, or none was being delivered because the roads had fallen apart and Eskom was paying too little to make it economically viable for private companies to deliver.

So where does this leave South Africa? Answer: deeper in the sh*t, quicker than what even I as a hard boiled cynic, thought possible. They say it will take ten years of this situation before they recover – well, sunshines, let me tell you there will be no industries left in South Africa is this carries on for another ten years. Who are they trying to kid?

 
Source: South Africa Sucks

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Can Big Business and Media bring ANC and ESKOM in check?

By Mike Smith – Cape Town

The mining industry in South Africa came to a grinding halt this past week due to the South African Power supplier, Eskom, unable to deliver electricity to the mines. This has a major knock-on effect, because thousands of other smaller companies supply or deal with the mines and are dependent on the mines for their very survival.

Now I see the newspapers report that the CEO of Anglo American Corporation, Cynthia Carroll is on her way to South Africa to meet with Government Ministers and Eskom Representatives.

Anglo American is the second largest mining group in the world next to Rio Tinto. Anglo moved from South Africa to London in 1999 after it merged with the Luxembourg company, Minorco. They changed their entire corporate structure, which was imposed on them by the previous South African Government to prevent them from raping the country too much. Anglo’s move was received with consternation in South Africa, where it was seen as a political snub to President Nelson Mandela’s government and it was slammed by the big unions. Anglo American was instrumental in bringing the ANC to power in South Africa. Their previous leaders like Ogilvie Thompson (a former Rhodes Scholar) and Gavin W. H. Relly, frequently spoke out against the previous government and Relly led a business delegation in 1985 to go and speak to the then banned ANC terrorist organization. The combined assets of Anglo American and Minorco is estimated as $ 15 Billion; money that was earned off the backs of cheap Black Labour. Such is the hypocrisy of this company. Speaking out against Apartheid while at the same time enriching themselves with virtual black slave labour. Ironically Anglo has been slapped with a lawsuit to pay reparations to victims for “upholding” Apartheid. They are basically sued for everything they have ($20 Billion).

Cynthia Carroll, is known in South Africa as the “Queen (BEE)Keeper” for meeting all Anglo’s Black Economic Empowerment goals, but it is in Alaska where she really made a name for herself. There she is known as “Cyanide Cynthia” the World’s Biggest Scrooge.

She is reported by Forbes magazine to be the seventh most powerful woman in the world. What she and her buddies from Northern Dynasty want to do is to build the world’s biggest dam in Alaska so she can mine stacks of gold to gild her mirrors and toilet seats with. The area where she wants to do it is prime Sockeye Salmon habitat. These Salmon needs to swim upstream to lay their eggs. With the dam in the way the Salmon will never reach their spawning grounds. Bears, Fish Eagles and Native Humans who rely on the Salmon will obviously be affected, but the cyanide used to extract the gold from the rock will destroy the Salmon population completely. Anglo-American and Northern Dynasty plan to spend $100 million this year on consultants, environmental impact statements, and bribing the locals (or, as they put it, “getting the social license”).

Does she give a flying hoot? Does Anglo American Corporation worry about sensitive eco systems? No. All they care about is selling their gold and platinum to Rappers to hang around their necks as “Bling”.

Anglo American (De Beers) and Consolidated Goldfields were started by Cecil John Rhodes and his South African Company and it is now controlled by the Oppenheimer family; one of the world’s ten richest families. An offshoot of the SA Company was LonRho or the London Rhodesian Company, who have been raping the African continent for almost a century. Rhodes was also the one who instigated the Anglo Boer war against the two Boer Republics. A war that saw genocide and the deaths of tens of thousands of this tiny white nation and also the introduction of concentration camps of Lord Kitchener, where twenty-seven-thousand Boer women and children died; all for the greed of gold and diamonds.

Before the transfer of power to the ANC terrorist regime in 1994, the Oppenheimers controlled about 80% of all the stock on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Today, after the blacks got their “Freedom” they still control almost 80% of all the stock on the JSE.

It is common knowledge amongst South African journalists worthy of the name, that Mandela never took any decisions without consulting the Oppenheimers. The Oppenheimers also control the media in South Africa through various front companies such as the Argus Group which was sold to Tony O’Reilly’s Independent Group of Ireland (1994) and Caxton/CTP.

In 1993 Mandela spent Christmas at the Nassau Holiday home of Tony O’Reilly in the Bahamas. Tony O’Reilly also owns major shares in British News Paper Publishing (43%), Australian Provincial Newspapers (55%), in New Zealand (44%) of Wilson and Horton, and (25%) of Irish Press Newspapers. I am not even considering his interests in Radio and television, the point I like to make is that Tony O’Reilly is also a big buddy of Robert Mugabe. In 1992 he entertained Mugabe at his mansion in County Kildare. He considers the current South Africa a “Modern Day miracle”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/sir-anthony-oreilly-keep-believing-in-the-new-south-africa-421399.html

You will note that I refer to him as Tony O’Reilly and not “Sir” Anthony O’Reilly, because Irish citizens aren’t supposed to have titles.

But Anglo American was not the only big corporation who supported the ANC terrorists. Let us not forget that the Dutch oil giant, Shell, donated an entire tower block in the centre of Johannesburg to the ANC. Shell, BP and Anglo America refused to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997 to explain their links with the Apartheid government.

However. In countries suffering from civil war such as Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Anglo American continues to profit from the conflict and associated human rights abuses which condemn local communities to insecurity and terror. In the Philippines and South Africa, local communities threatened with Anglo American mines have faced severe repression in their fight to stay on their land. In Ghana and Mali, local communities see little of the huge profits being made by AngloGold Ashanti but suffer from fear and intimidation and from the damaging impact of its mines on their environment, health and livelihoods.

In September 2006, Colombian mining leader Alejandro Uribe was assassinated. Uribe had been leading the community’s peaceful opposition to AngloGold Ashanti’s mining in the region and was seeking an investigation into the killing of another mining union leader the month before.
http://www.waronwant.org/

I am however very interested to know what is going to be discussed between Cynthia Carroll and the ANC/Eskom delegation. I wish I was a fly on the wall.

Remember these are companies who have MONEY and who hire private armies such as MPRI and Blackwater to “Guard their interests”. These private armies are not scared of any government’s troops. They simply offer them employment for a hundred times what they earn in their own countries and redeploy them in Iraq or Afghanistan.

This could get VERY interesting. As Anglo-American/De Beers’s profits are being affected, expect their liberal do-gooder stance to fly out the window faster than you could say “Mercenary”. Maybe now you understand why the South African ANC Government has introduced draconian Anti-Mercenary laws.

Interesting times indeed. Maybe these Multi Billion Dollar Corporations will realize that when they supported the ANC terrorists, they betted on the wrong horse. Maybe the previous government wasn’t so bad after all. It will be interesting to see how they scramble around trying to do damage control after their darling ANC buddies stuffed up their profits and business interests in South Africa.

They know exactly where they can go and find sympathy…

 
Source: South Africa Sucks