READER LETTER | It will take a miracle to rescue Eskom

In recent years, South Africans had to endure gruelling price hikes for life’s basic necessities such as food, fuel, electricity and water. These financial burdens are placed on citizens in a society where unemployment and poverty flourish while inequality booms.

Eskom’s request for a 32% tariff hike is a symptom of its failure to deliver reliable, affordable and physically accessible electricity, caused by its unsustainable financing model.

Eskom is often characterised as a nationalised public utility and its deterioration is seen to be a consequence of gross mismanagement by the government, purported to be a given, as a result of Eskom’s monopoly over the energy sector.

But what stifled the utility before and during the years of parasitic corruption, known now as state capture, is a contradiction between its public ownership and its corporatised mandate.

This creates an impossible task to provide electricity as a universal public good, while at the same time needing to make Eskom profitable by selling electricity to people, who for the most part are unable to afford it. Municipalities are also adding to the problem through mismanagement and the devouring of funds meant to provide free basic electricity.

And according to the Public Affairs Research Institute, in the 2019-20 financial year, R9bn was budgeted and disbursed by Treasury to local governments for provision of electricity. This was subsequently misappropriated for unauthorised purposes.

Municipalities’ failure to register indigent households results in two disastrous outcomes: poverty deepening by continued lack of electricity, and Eskom losing billions of rand in revenue because the utility is meant to receive revenue from municipalities for the free units provided.

The recent revelation by the DA that the useless cabinet ministers who go to parliament to sleep have been rewarded for their uselessness with free water and electricity perks by our underperforming president, really confirmed what the Bible says: "A wicked ruler is as dangerous to the poor as a roaring lion or an attacking bear (Prov.28:15)."

Black man, you are on your own. Forget about politicians because there are no righteous politicians; they are all habitual liars. SA does not need new political parties, but divine intervention.

Bushy Green, Kagiso, Mogale City