Race-onomics

Eskom really is the poster-child for botched government meddling and cronyism.  Why South Africa’s electricity supply has to be monopolised by government, only the politicians can tell you.  And not the current ones, I’m talking about the one’s in 1923 when Eskom was created.

A brief read of the history of the company shows that the power utility has been a politicised animal since its inception.  Even the arrival at the name Eskom was a result of political contortions and compromises.  According to Wikipedia,

Eskom is a South African electricity public utility, established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) by the government of South Africa in terms of the Electricity Act (1922). It was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (EVKOM). The two acronyms were combined in 1986 and the company is now known as Eskom.

Gotta love that good ol’ English-Afrikaans rivalry. Petty, pathetic, and ultimately totally inefficient.  (Although come to think of it, Eskom is a pretty efficient name to pronounce.  Imagine it was called the Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie!)

Anyway, that Eskom ran efficiently and was able to deliver such cheap electricity to South Africa can really be summed up quite simply: Cheap, easy coal; monopolistic economies of scale; oh, and the small matter that it was only delivering electricity to a tiny minority of mostly urbanising whites whose population was pretty stable.

So let’s get one thing perfectly clear: the politicisation of Eskom is nothing new.

But it doesn’t make it right, and the way the ANC have politicised Eskom again is sad.  The Bobby Godsell/Jacob Maroga saga  has really made it so wonderfully clear to us at Human Action why we dislike it so intensely when government tries to control industries and productive resources. 

One obviously likes to hear all facts once everything has been presented, but so far the story goes like this: Eskom messed up, Bobby (white) came in at board level to give some advice to Jacob (black) the CEO.  Jacob and Bobby clearly had their disagreements, and both decided it was either “my way or the highway”.  So both agreed to submit competing plans to the board.  The board would review, decide which plan worked best and discard the other’s plan.  The gladiator who’s plan was trashed would do the honourable thing and resign.

Act 2: Bobby’s plan was approved, Jacob’s rejected.  Jacob fell on his sword, only to un-stab himself, lobby for political protection and remain chief in charge.  Bobby picked up said sword and fell on it – presumably out of exasperation.

Bobby came out to explain his tale.  Jacob has not said much yet.  But we have seen Jacob’s rejected vision which presumably now has been promoted to ‘favoured vision’ status with any dissenters likely being told to keep very quiet at this stage.

Jacob’s vision is unremarkable from a business perspective.  He talks about operational improvements that when one reads the only rational and mature response is, “duh!”

But what isn’t unremarkable is the racial baggage that Jacob brings to the process when addressing some of the ‘real’ ‘underlying’ problems with Eskom’s failure of the past few years.  According to Money Web,

Maroga plans to transform Eskom based on a plan for the next 25 years.

Eskom needs to clearly define its role in South Africa in accordance with government’s expectations.

On point 2 you can read, “Eskom needs to hire more blacks instead of whites“. 

Money Web’s summary of Maroga’s vision continues,

“From racial accounting to real organisational transformation”:

• Eskom’s current leadership paradigm is one of technocratic arrogance, apartheid style supervisory mentality and secrecy.
• White supervision pervades Eskom due to the view that “blacks by themselves are not able to lead and achieve anything of significance”.
• White journalists are given higher prominence than black journalists, internal management control processes and internal audits.
• White supervisors leak documents selectively to white dominated organisations to promote the perception that more white supervision is required. 
• The Olsen report on coal procurement – “The Olsen report was written by a white person and leaked by a white person to an political party and the media. It did not matter that this report was in response to already identified weaknesses that were already being addressed.”

There may be an overhang of white supremacy in Eskom, I don’t know, I don’t work there.  Maybe blacks in Eskom feel belittled, and whites are lauding it over them with a big stick.  But somehow, 15 years into our democracy and under the full shareholding of the black ANC government, I doubt it.

Bobby Godsell is a tough guy, and if anecdotal reports are anything to go by, quite difficult to work with or for.  But he wasn’t at Eskom for his health or to play Mr. Nice-Guy, he was there in his capacity to get a job done for the good of Eskom and the nation.  That a man of his experience and track-record has been shunned like this is worrying.

But more worrying is the racialization of Eskom and the politicisation of the power utility.  One thing we at Human Actioncan guarantee is that when the politicians (of any race) take the reigns, the edifice is doomed to fall sooner or later.  That time for Eskom has arrived and ordinary South African’s will pay the price.  That blacks still find it hard to take orders from authoritative whites without crying “racism” is perhaps an even sadder reflection on the state of real progress in the ‘Rainbow Nation’.

I don’t care what colour the man or woman running Eskom is, I just care that, on a matter of such paramount importance to this economy, we get the government out, and the best in the business in. 

That’s economic freedom.

UPDATE: Money Web’s solid coverage continues here, and possibly some sanity returning to the debate…