South Africa's electricity crisis has reached alarming proportions, severely affecting the nation's morale, destabilizing the already fragile economy, and disrupting the daily routines of resilient citizens who have come to accept this dire situation as the new norm.

Many cannot afford generators, solar power systems, or UPS devices capable of providing essential electricity for several hours daily. This looming energy crisis has been a concern for over a decade and has now become a harsh reality.

I am in awe of how Ukraine manages to provide power to its people amid relentless missile and drone assaults on their energy infrastructure.

“Despite efforts to repair damaged civilian infrastructure, Ukrainian authorities have had to implement planned power outages to avoid overwhelming the remaining energy systems. By October 2022, at least 40% of the nation’s energy facilities had suffered significant damage. In December, over half of the energy users experienced power cuts.” — Amnesty International, 22 December 2022.

Ukrainians are enduring a nightmare of freezing conditions, lacking heating, water, food, health care, and education — yet they persevere, fighting for their nation against terrorist threats.

In South Africa, however, the crisis is self-inflicted.

The ruling party recognized the impending storm years ago but took no significant action beyond obfuscation and dismissing the role of private power producers. They remain entrenched in an outdated ideology that the state must maintain complete control over essential infrastructure to avoid losing authority.

The African National Congress (ANC) continues to hold power, yet they have strayed from their initial mission, with cadre deployment, Black Economic Empowerment, and appointments based on loyalty rather than skill leading to the decline of critical infrastructure, including roads, railways, ports, and, most importantly, electricity.

Since load shedding began in 2007, eleven different chief executive officers (CEOs) have led Eskom, our electricity utility. Andre de Ruyter took the helm in January 2020, marking the first white CEO since the establishment of democracy in 1994. His appointment faced backlash from radical factions within society due to his race.

(So much for the ANC’s Freedom Charter promoting non-racialism.)

It’s worth noting that a recruitment firm approached 27 black executives for the position, all of whom declined. Who would want to undertake such a challenging role?

The entrenched corruption from the State Capture era under former President Jacob Zuma had severely weakened Eskom. De Ruyter aimed to introduce transparency, eliminate corruption, and address the engineering and technical skill gaps caused by the exodus of skilled white employees due to the ANC's insistence on demographic representation in staffing.

Nine months into his tenure, he discovered that the 90 power generation units across 15 coal-fired stations were in far worse condition than anticipated. The neglect of routine maintenance and lengthy repair times (months, rather than days or weeks) would further decrease the Energy Availability Factor (EAF).

He concluded that unless new generation capacity was established within two years, we would face permanent load shedding by 2024. Given our wealth of sunlight and wind, the most rapid and cost-effective solution was renewable energy.

He stated, “It’s time to transform our coal shovels into windmills.”

He believed that private sector involvement could accelerate the renewable energy expansion, allowing Eskom to schedule major overhauls and close older power plants.

Before continuing, a brief explanation is in order.

Eskom is a state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Public Enterprises, but the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy also plays a role. Gwede Mantashe, the minister in charge, known as the fossil fuel minister, openly admits to being a coal fundamentalist.

This context explains his aversion to renewable energy; he only agreed to raise the regulated private power generation limit from 10W to 100W after President Ramaphosa intervened earlier this year.

(You may recall the buffalo man with US dollars hidden in his couch, which were later stolen from his Phala Phala game farm.)

Mantashe accused de Ruyter of incompetence shortly after his appointment and has been targeting him ever since.

The year 2020 marked the worst for load shedding, with the EAF plummeting to 40%, worse than Ukraine's situation. Since September 6, we have been subjected to daily power cuts.

I've stopped tracking the number of days; now I simply monitor the hours of power available and attempt to schedule my activities accordingly. Some days, we face four-hour outages three times; other days, the interruptions are shorter.

I check the Eskom app on my phone multiple times daily for updates on the load shedding schedule. Eskom often provides minimal notice (sometimes just twenty minutes) about increased load shedding levels.

This situation is not entirely their fault; units scheduled for maintenance are frequently delayed in returning to service while others simultaneously break down.

As load shedding intensified, calls for de Ruyter's removal grew louder. Recently, Mantashe, re-elected as ANC Chairman at their national conference, disparaged de Ruyter and his management, effectively labeling him a traitor.

“Eskom, by failing to address rolling blackouts, is actively inciting the overthrow of the government.”

Mantashe previously claimed that Eskom could resolve its issues within six months without de Ruyter and that de Ruyter lacked the technical expertise to manage the utility.

Hello, executive management is responsible for overseeing operations, not for wielding wrenches.

De Ruyter called Mantashe's bluff. His resignation as Eskom's CEO became public knowledge on December 14, although he will remain in his position until March of next year.

He was steering Eskom in the right direction, and now it faces uncertainty. The chief operating officer, Jan Oberholzer, is set to retire in April 2023, and the general executive for generation, Rhulani Mathebula, recently resigned, unable to cope with the pressure.

This development poses a significant threat to our economy.

Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), the largest business organization in the country, expressed that de Ruyter’s resignation jeopardizes prospects for economic recovery and growth. Meanwhile, the Black Business Council has repeatedly demanded his resignation, blaming him for the blackouts.

Common sense suggests that changing the CEO will not fix the underlying issues. No previous CEO, all of whom were black, successfully resolved these problems, and none faced similar calls for resignation. Yet, a white CEO who remained for three years and was beginning to effect change has become a scapegoat for Eskom's long-standing challenges.

Without political backing, de Ruyter made the right decision. He had already received threats to his life due to his efforts to halt corruption and internal sabotage at Eskom.

On the day of his resignation announcement, de Ruyter's WhatsApp profile featured the famous "Man in the Are