When Services Collapse
Every region gets a timetable and you kind of know what to expect as this has been going on for so many years. We are on 2 outages per day now.
South Africa has been in an electricity supply crisis for over 15 years now and there seems to be no improvements happening. We are currently experiencing a level 4 load shedding which means for us anyway where I live 2 batches of 2 hours per day with no electricity.
Now imagine if you are a business trying to make ends meet as so many of the services are affected. Internet outages even when you have electricity as the signal wavers and drops the line. Cell phone reception is affected and the list goes on and on.
Power surges are common when having load shedding.
The problem is now that they are concerned with diesel shortages as they have been using the temporary gas turbines full time. Each turbine uses 14 liters of diesel per second or $50K per hour and they have 20 of them running. These turbines were only meant to be used at peak times during the evening when shortfalls needed topping up and now they are part of the main grid.
Two outages per day could become 2 double outages meaning 8 hours every day if the dam levels drop and diesel supplies are depleted. Talk about a mess which is getting worse and no end in sight.
Imagine flying in knowing there should be lights down below.
The Minister for Energy and Resources is the one behind the power ship contracts which is corrupt as hell and this is what they ultimately wanted. The failure of services so they could reap the benefits supplying their option. Funny as that investigation was stopped this week as they investigated themselves and found no wrong doing even though the opposition party had 2 people involved and the race card was used to silence them.
There are too many service failures happening with the largest hospital in Africa the Baragwanath having run out of food. The Health Department is trying to say it was only bread but Doctors have come out saying they are buying their patients food otherwise they cannot take their medication. This is why private medical schemes are a must here as you cannot risk a stint in a Government hospital.
Roads are constant battle as potholes remain only getting bigger and bigger by the week. there is definitely a lack of spending power around maintaining the basics which has me more concerned than normal. I have a meeting with my business partner next week and we honestly need to sort things out and maybe open up somewhere else more viable. Business is impossible as you have one hand tied behind your back and there always seems to be something else stopping what you need to do.
You do have to start thinking how bad can things can really get before they improve and if it is seriously time to move. Unemployment on the increase with a recession about to hit (already here) things are looking grim.
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