Power spin masks harsh reality of 1 300% tariff hikes and theft

If Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa could bottle his oily smugness, there would be enough of it to run Eskom’s power stations.

He smilingly told us last week the days of the exploitation of customers were over – knowing that the power utility was lining up a tariff increase of 8.8%.

This is double the rate of inflation. But numbers don’t matter to the minister. He told us, when outlining new electricity pricing policy, that power prices had risen 907% since 2007. He wasn’t being truthful. Over the past two decades, the increase has been 1 300%.

Nowhere else in the world, outside a country involved in a war or total economic collapse, have such increases been experienced.

Not satisfied with a world record for scalping your citizens, Eskom – having just reported a profit of R30 billion – intends to carry on.

This, despite Ramokgopa’s anguished chest beating which acknowledged high electricity prices are an investment disincentive and that because of them we may well lose important mining beneficiation options like smelters.

Our ANC commanders – because they are the ones who deployed Ramokgopa and others like him into ministerial and Eskom positions – seem to be prepared to torpedo hopes of economic revival so they can look good in annual reports.

That attitude will certainly finish off the slow execution of the goose which should be laying the golden eggs… though the ANC’s greedy hands have been choking it for a long time now.

But, to continue with the animal allusions, while the goose is dying, the elephant in the room being ignored by everyone is growing ever more bloated.

That is the reality that so many South Africans are thieves. Stealing electricity or refusing to pay your bills will see the whole system crumble.