Mushtak Parker
As the Springboks gear up to take on Romania at the Stade de Bordeaux on Sunday at the 2023 Rugby World Cup (RWC) in France, their millions of fans at home are faced with the frustrating quandary of whether they will be able to watch the match live on local TV.
The euphoria after the agreement between MultiChoice and SABC to sub-license broadcast rights to the public broadcaster for the RWC was woefully short-lived when South Africans were confronted with the brutal and embarrassing reality that they would be deprived from watching the opening match of the tournament between France and the New Zealand All Blacks last Friday because of the dreaded load shedding by what these days passes for an electricity utility, Eskom.
That disappointment quickly extended to the opening match of Amabokoboko last Sunday when Siya Kolisi’s team grittily saw off an over-expectant Scottish side 18-3 to the chagrin of millions of Springbok fans once again due to load shedding, Eskom’s preferred euphemism for arbitrary power cuts.
I thought I would celebrate 6,000 miles away in London in spirit with my compatriots at home. In contrast to the shabby treatment exacted by Eskom to a hapless Rainbow Nation in London, I was showered with notifications not only by free view national broadcaster ITV1 of the build-up and the actual Boks-Scotland match, but also by the live coverage by France 2023, the official website of RWC, to which I was also signed up to.
After all, if you pay your TV licence fees and subscriptions, and your electricity bills to boot, surely that is what a consumer would expect from any self-respecting broadcaster and electricity supplier.
“Enjoy the rugby. Unfortunately, we have load shedding and will craft the second half. I can tell you now that the reality of an ANC rule next year is very unlikely, unless there is a Third Hand in the results. People are really frustrated with these power cuts, especially because there continues to be politicking around it,” advised a prominent journalist friend in Cape Town who wished to remain anonymous. Another friend similarly lamented: “Unfortunately, we will not be able to watch the game due to load shedding of electricity in South Africa. Things are getting worse here, especially with the crime rate that is escalating.”
Any potential lasting feel-good factor in the likely event of a Springbok triumph in France was similarly poo-pooed by a veteran professional: “Unfortunately, World Cup success only provides a fleeting feel-good buzz. Once that euphoria inevitably departs a few days later, it’s back to the reality of our sadly broken country beset by crime, violence, rampant and shameless corruption, and plain ineptitude!”
When Siya Kolisi lifted the William Webb Ellis Cup in Yokahama at RWC 2019, President Ramaphosa was quick to leverage the Springboks’ success when he reminded international delegates at a subsequent South Africa Investment Conference that they were “in the land of the rugby champions of the world.”
On the eve of RWC 2023, there were no signs of any contrition on the part of the Ramaphosa administration, Eskom, SABC, and even rugby’s cowering governing body, SA Rugby, on whose website the words “load shedding” as an advisory to loyal fans was as bereft as Eskom was keeping the rugby in the dark.
But then casuistry - the use of clever but unsound reasoning – seems to be the very modus operandi of successive ANC Governments since the advent of the Zuma administration, and its culture of state capture and its push back against any criticism or call out against wrongdoing on the basis it was rooted in a colonialist and apartheid mindset – the last refuge of the political scoundrels!
Since then, ‘implausible deniability’ has become the narrative of ANC-speak, couched in a never-ending diet of half-truths, contradictions, dichotomies, anomalies and incredulity. Minister in the Presidency for Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, at a media briefing on September 2, confirmed that Eskom planned maintenance outages to fix generating units aimed at improving performance.
Almost two weeks later, on September 14, his fellow minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, admitted that “the concerted implementation of the planned fleet maintenance programme has resulted in increased stages of load shedding in recent days. The implementation of Stage 6 load shedding in the last week was a regress from the trends that prevailed in the previous weeks of lower stages of load shedding.” The Cabinet is being kept informed about any progress all along.
Whether her assertion that “the current implementation of increased stages of load shedding is a short-term phase as Eskom prepares for more sustained and lessened stages of load shedding in the not too distant future” inspires any credibility or confidence among her fellow South Africans remains to be seen.
Back track to August 31, when in a media briefing, Ntshavheni confidently declared: “Although the last few days had recorded an increase in the load shedding stages to Stage 4, the situation has since improved with the return of units to generation and Eskom continues to taper down the load shedding stages.”
There is clearly a mismatch in the government load shedding narrative, with the ministers in the Presidency seemingly toing and froing at the mercy of events on the ground beyond their control and, for that matter, beyond the control of a dysfunctional and discredited electricity utility, which was once the World Bank’s go-to technical partner for proposed new power projects on continental Africa, and which has become a laughing stock of the power generation and maintenance fraternity.
Ntshavheni’s hope that “South Africa’s agreement with the Chinese (power) companies (signed during the 15th BRICS Summit in August) will play a significant role in introducing electricity infrastructure with self-preservation capability” is either an exercise in extreme optimism or based on a breath-taking inexperience of the dynamics of power generation, distribution and maintenance, or simply a naive attempt in political expediency on behalf of a beleaguered Ramaphosa administration.
In the meantime, Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, must be laughing all the way to the grid, insulated by the very power politicking of which South Africans have simply had their fill. His marginalisation following the curious and unusual appointment of Dr Ramokgopa as electricity minister in the Presidency is precisely the manifestation of discord and dysfunction at the very nexus of the government’s sterile energy and electricity policy and decision making.
If ideology is a factor, as it seems to be (Mantashe is on the ticket of the SACP and, as such, ideologically opposed to any form of privatisation of Eskom or much greater private sector involvement in the country’s energy delivery mix), then why did Ramaphosa simply not sack him instead of going through this façade of separation of electricity generation from the wider, traditional energy portfolio?
As to pristine power generation, perhaps Ramaphosa can take a leaf out of Amabokoboko’s book. To the international media, the Springboks are currently the most feared rugby unit, complete with the bomb squad, because of the power they generate in scrums, in the ferocity of their tackling and the sheer strength of their character and defence.
Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa, in his message of support to the Springboks on the eve of the opening match against the Scots, reminded that “the Springboks represent the best of South Africa. They inspire national unity and foster social cohesion and national identity. This was captured by President Nelson Mandela during the 1995 Rugby World Cup, where the Springboks were a key ingredient to his message of national unity. The current Springboks represent this country's diversity and represent South African excellence with their performances.”
How amiss of Kodwa not to warn millions of his compatriots of the pending darkness that would deprive them of supporting their beloved Boks against Scotland through the inevitable load shedding. After all, we were told that the cabinet was being kept informed about Eskom’s load shedding shenanigans!
Parker is a writer and economist based in London