Real Numbers: Eskom state of emergency fails to solve leadership deficit
After losing an election, former prime minister of Lesotho, Leabua Jonathan, connived to declare a state of emergency. Many Basotho, heard of the Sesotho word Qomatsi for the first time. Qomatsi is a Sesotho word for state of emergency.
Shortly after the announcement many were arrested, obviously without trial, and the military started atrocious killings captured in Ntate Khaketla’s book titled Lesotho 1970.
A number of students who were studying at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS) were arrested, especially those in the sciences. Chief Thesele Sekhonyana, the deputy Lesotho prime minister, alleged that the science students were manufacturing bombs. My elder brother, who had just completed his science degree, was one of those who went into detention without trial for an extended period of time.
One winter night my village of Qibing, near Wepener on the South African side, got a tip that an attack by night from the Leabua soldiers was imminent. This got the village onto high alert by about 7pm. All boys were mobilised under the leadership of a retired policeman, Malefane Mokete. He led us to Chief Ntsepe Masoetsa’s place where plans were laid out as to how strategic positions would be taken when the attack materialised.
Two entry points to the village were identified. One through a neck between mountains and another through an open veld. Entry through the neck was the most likely because it connected easily to Mafeteng town, which was one of the military operations and logistics stations.
But it was strategic for the villagers to have an obvious victory as we would roll the rocks down the mountain and any shooting at us would be at an angle that would not reach the target. The open area to the north posed difficulty and left the village very vulnerable. Nonetheless the plans went ahead that should the military vehicles come from that end we would throw stones at them.
The plans were finalised at the chief’s place and we marched to a rendezvous at a football pitch with a vantage point for an attack that came from the open field. An espionage duo went to the neck and they would signal with a torch light if the enemy was approaching.
Alas a vehicle came from about 10km and boy we ran towards where the lights came from at such high speed with a war cry. For a stretch of half a kilometre a number of us were beginning to find difficulty keeping up the pace. Then the vehicle’s lights showed a change of course away from the village and disappeared in the distance. The combatants got back to the point of assembly, but a number had already gone back to their homes.
Our commander Mokete was surrounded by a handful of die hearts, who in time realised that this was a mobilisation in futility. We went home to sleep. What is the relevance of this attempt at what was a colossal problem?
To my mind the declaration of the state of disaster on electricity does not differ much to the 1970 plan that we hatched to prepare for the military if it attacked our village.
The only difference here is that the collapse of the grid is imminent. But a weak human resource and structure imposed on an already weak system will wreak havoc and cause more accidents on the system.
Faced with a serious power loss in 1985, the memoirs of the then Eskom CEO, Dr Ian McRae (CEO between 1985 and 1994), remind us of the leadership strength of a technically imbued CEO.
McRaee led by example.
He recounted: “In this incident, the staff had to draw on their extensive experience to resolve a particular situation. A few days later, Koos (Oosthuizen) happened to be on shift when unit 5 tripped again, causing a full loss of load and the need to extinguish all fire in the boiler, with an immediate drop from 100 MW of load to zero. There were clear operating procedures in restoring the boiler and generator back on load. With the serious difficulties we experienced with the performance at light load, however, it was quite difficult to maintain ignition. I joined Koos at the boiler control desk to assist him. I told him I would take control of the draught groups and water control – he should take control of the burners and the milling plant. After a while, we returned the unit to full load, and the furnace was again stable.”
It is this technical knowledge that is required to bring the fleet to operation.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
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