WTF??
Posted on 01/16/2015 4:59:41 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — As schools reopen here in the coming days after the Christmas break, South Africans are braced for a surge in the power cuts that have plagued the country since early December, and the rolling blackouts could spell trouble for the ruling African National Congress at the ballot box.
During the week, schools, factories and offices will move to full capacity, drawing on an already-fragile national grid. And in the heat of the Southern Hemisphere summer, air conditioners will be turned on full blast.
A state-owned company, ESKOM, has the monopoly to produce more than 95 percent of the nation’s electricity but, since 2008, a lack of maintenance and delays in opening new plants have led to a growing gap in supply. Last week large swaths of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and the capital Pretoria were left in the dark as ESKOM cut transmission for hours at a time to prevent a collapse of its network.
Residents in poorer areas, a constituency likely to be fiercely contested in upcoming elections, claim they have been unfairly targeted.
“Our lights go off for many hours, sometimes all night,” said Charlotte Ngwenya at Olivenhout, a sprawling settlement with hundreds of wood-and-iron shacks halfway down the 40-mile highway between Pretoria and the commercial base of Johannesburg. “People are poor here, and no one cares if we are in the dark,” she said.
Mrs. Ngwenya works as a cleaner in the plush suburb of Waterkloof north of Pretoria, where diplomats and government ministers enjoy large homes with lawns and swimming pools.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
PING!
Before the ANC took over, how often did South Africa suffer from blackouts? Just ax’n ;-)
Sounds like things are really going well now that Blacks have control of everything, doesn’t it?
Send Al Sharpton
Power to The People.....
WTF??
Like Deroit 15.years ago?
Didn’t see this coming, did we? [/s]
I went to school with a fellow from South Africa and kept in touch with him over the years. About three years ago he moved to the UK, said he couldn’t deal with the poverty, racism and corruption anymore. Sad, so very sad.
I'm shocked the savages still have any viable infrastructure.
That change you can count on.
I really don’t think snide little racially bigoted comments are necessary. What separates the RSA from the USA is not all that much. I’m a 51 year old white man who knows people who grew up walking out to an outhouse in the morning or who were finally connected to the power grid after having been born in their house under kerosene lanterns. I think we need to learn to critique without the inflammatory rhetoric. And yes I am a supporter of the Afrikaners if any here think I’m a flaming libtard.
The Venezuela of Africa.
Where are they today? One can make an educated guess. In England living in neat semi-detached villas. A nice recreational park close by. A friendly Bobby on the beat- or a the beck of a cell phone call. The white South African, if rich, living in gated, electronically controlled enclave. Of the lesser South African whites I am dubious about their peace of mind.
Yes, snide could not describe my invective regarding the liberal white activists safe and sound elsewhere. Excuse my ramble. We had only one power outage in my neighbourhood in Canada for years. I would not wish an outage on anyone.
When South Africa become another Zimbabwe (and it will eventually happen), they will blame “racism”.
No doubt.
We can’t believe a story like this. After all, the advent of the ANC to power in South Africa ushered in a veritable Paradise on Earth. British and American presstitutes told us so.
Where does the Washington Times get its info? We didn’t have any blackouts (known here as load-shedding)last week. We had them for a few weeks Nov/Dec before the long school holidays started and factory holiday closures.
We are told that they will definitely be starting again from next week, possibly on a daily basis. In Cape Town we previously had a weekly schedule. My suburb was typically off on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon from 2:00pm to 4:30pm. My sister was supposed to be off from 6:00am to 8:00am on Saturday on Sunday, but since they only started the load-shedding at 8:00am on Sundays she was affected for only 1 day. Other times, I was at work (different suburb) when my suburb was off. At work, however, we tended to be “shed” at 2:00pm on Fridays, which meant that we knocked off early;-)
From February onwards, Cape Town is instituting a schedule based on days of the month, rather than days of the week. Much more sensible, but what you expect from the Western Cape being the only province which is not ANC controlled!
The biggest problem will be large industries and mines, etc. It seems that when the power goes down, it can take up to 24 hours to get them up and running again, by which time the power could go down again.
“What separates the RSA from the USA is not all that much.”
Do you really believe that? (A serious question)
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