9 hours ago, plonkster said:

they have to reduce the workforce.

Not going to happen - unless they want to lose their voters.

The average eishkom salary a while back was R645k per year.

Btw, their pension fund is the biggest in the country with not too many contributors.

Sooo, they will never ever give this up voluntarily.

lol

Man, I hate this negativity. So here is what's coming up, not necessarily in this order, and not necessarily for certain, but let's call them items of uncertainty:

1. Mboweni. I suspect he will be replaced. Don't know with whom.

2. Moodies. What will they do in November (I suspect they will leave things unchanged for now). What happens in 2020?

3. Busisiwe Mkhwebane. How on earth do you have a public protector losing multiple court cases for making bad calls? How is she still in that job? (I suppose only parliament can remove her).

4. Reserve bank. So Kganyago's term is until 2025, but nothing really prevents the government from interfering here, right? Will the mandate be changed, will there be interference?

5. NHI. I am so in two minds about this. I always felt that we needed better healthcare for the poor, and that the rich ought to get more for their tax money instead of paying twice (which is what they do now, technically), but this seems like a downright mess.

6. State capture. Will anything come of this commission, or is it just arms deal v2?

7. Ramaphosa. Does he have any actual political power and/or will, or is he like Hage Geingob (who I have a fairly positive opinion about usually), who practically admitted recently that unlike Nujoma (who had struggle credentials) he doesn't command the same kind of respect?

So those are all the negative things in my mind, and right now a positive outcome that points in the right direction on ANY of them would make my day.

2 hours ago, plonkster said:

... , and right now a positive outcome that points in the right direction on ANY of them would make my day.

Sorry, no chance for that ... and I am ALWAYS more than happy to be wrong!
Re. the persecutions, sorry, prosecutions, here's an ANALYSIS: A disfigured leadership team is Shamila Batohi's biggest obstacle to success

You forgot SABC and Denel ... The first hint of conditions on Eskom’s R59-billion bailout emerged on Wednesday when National Treasury Director-General Dondo Mogajane briefed MPs on the Special Appropriation Bill. This came as pressure is ratcheting up on another financial front: the SABC is technically insolvent.

And the Post Office: POST OFFICE CEO MARK BARNES RESIGNS

I'll stop now, for there is still the matter of the railways and a few other bothersome things potting in and around SA like say Gauteng could be SA's next Day Zero region, agriculture forum hears

Like I said, more than happy to be wrong if there is a positive note I am missing. 🤣

The theft of the bracing cross metal beams on Eskom pylons seems to be expanding.

Got a video in, too big to post here, but this guy who shot the video says he saw quite a few pylons stripped like below, which makes me wonder:
1) How long will it take to replace the removed parts / new pylon?
2) how many of them are just waiting to topple over in a wind / storm?
3) And what would the result be?

See the bottom braces, gone.

 

I'd like to say something about that picture.

But I am speechless...

 

From what I have seen of pylons, the braces are bolted. They need to go around with a welder and weld them all in place. That will at least slow the process down.

4 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

See the bottom braces, gone.

It's common to see the nuts stolen from cell phone towers and similar "long poles" too.

1 hour ago, The Bulldog said:

But I am speechless...

As am I.

With the job scarcity and all that I suppose being the driving forced with this now re-surfacing as there was articles from a few years back on people whom got caught.

If this is rife, or gets worse and a few of those lines topple, where will Eskom get the cash to replace / fix it all?
I mean, those pylons cannot be cheap to replace.
And to lift all that cable again, replace the fuses or whatnot, is not a quick job either.
With the resultant power failures and loss of income downstream ... the weeks / months it takes.

I see this as Treason against SA and the full might of the law must come down on the perpetrators AND the buyers of the metal.

Interestingly today I took a heap of scrap from the farm to the scrap dealer. Amongst it was the remains of the eskom conductors and stay cables that they cut down and dumped in the veld. The scrap dealer recognized them as such, but was not overly concerned as to their provenance.

14 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Treason

Probably more like Sabotage. Though things with legal definitions are difficult to pinpoint, to the easiest way to get yourself out of that predicament is to prefix it with "tantamount to".

Treason is  the crime of disloyalty to the state. Sabotage usually requires at least a kind of intent that isn't here. Best you can probably do is destruction of public property.

But yeah... it does feel treasonous.

3 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

where will Eskom get the cash to replace / fix it all?

I’m sure Eskom has insurance in-place, hopefully payments are up to date, as soon as the line collapse and all the damage that will go along with it possibly blown switchgear and transformer failure they can get their hands on some needed cash.🤫

Nope, I dont think they have insurance. Rumour has it that the turbine that blew at Duvha power station in 1995 has still not been repaired. 

And another one bites the dust ...

 

And if that is not enough ... possible truck strike MAY impact Eskom too : ATDF vows to continue disruption of trucking services this Sunday

 

Ok, this is not exactly about Eskom, but it is about batteries (not!) and who is running this country i.e. who is in charge to fix Eskom.

So there was this right: Miracle new mineral to revolutionise battery storage

And then ... O ... MY ... WORD ... 🤦‍♂️ : Awkward: Mantashe punts fake mineral at Australian mining conference

I mean, Medupi and Kusile to take two years to fix

Probably because of no Hazenile ... 🤣

Please oh please tell me the Mantashe speech is fake news.... 

Us miners will never hear the end of that from Aus..... 

Edited September 5, 20196 yr by Johandup

1 hour ago, Johandup said:

Please oh please tell me the Mantashe speech is fake news.... 

Nope, not according to Google so far. Sorry.

Between Trump and Mantashe lately the "fake news" they spread is fast becoming "mainstream" news.

Edited September 5, 20196 yr by Guest

3 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Ok, this is not exactly about Eskom, but it is about batteries (not!) and who is running this country i.e. who is in charge to fix Eskom.

So there was this right: Miracle new mineral to revolutionise battery storage

And then ... O ... MY ... WORD ... 🤦‍♂️ : Awkward: Mantashe punts fake mineral at Australian mining conference

It think its time for Gwede to retire. That speech writer should retire first though....... Is it possible to fire someone for that mistake in SA, or would you find yourself at the CCMA? 

9 minutes ago, DeepBass9 said:

It think its time for Gwede to retire. That speech writer should retire first though....... Is it possible to fire someone for that mistake in SA, or would you find yourself at the CCMA? 

Nothing is going to happen to Gwede or anyone.

It will be blamed on that oak who came 300+ years ago and stole the Hazenile out of the Cango, sorry, Congo caves.

Edited September 5, 20196 yr by Guest

2 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Nothing is going to happen to Gwede or anyone.

It will be blamed on that oak who cam 300+ years ago and stole the Hazenile out of the Cango, sorry, Congo caves.

Actually it can be squarely blamed on one Jan van der Merwe who they quote in that article! I haven't heard a Van joke in years, but Gwede has! LOL.

"Jan van der Merwe, head researcher at the Institute," 

Edited September 5, 20196 yr by DeepBass9

On 2019/08/30 at 9:38 PM, Gerrie said:

I’m sure Eskom has insurance in-place, hopefully payments are up to date, as soon as the line collapse and all the damage that will go along with it possibly blown switchgear and transformer failure they can get their hands on some needed cash.🤫

They had insurance payouts for their boiler which blew years ago ...

Still not replaced ....

one can but hope

This is quite interesting, the effect of loadshedding on Municipal expenditure over time ... and the fact that Moody's are mentioning it ... mmmm

Eskom's worsening load shedding eating into municipal revenue - Moody's

@plonkster this article sums it up quite nicely when I "feel" around Rama's potential to "fix it all" : Ramaphosa's moment of truth

The ANC is the problem, not the factions in the ANC, no, the ANC ... they need to sort their own house and they cannot do that so Rama has no chance to do it on his own.

18 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

The ANC is the problem, not the factions in the ANC, no, the ANC ... they need to sort their own house and they cannot do that so Rama has no chance to do it on his own.

We've been having many similar discussions, and I see so many parallels with other areas of life.

Take for example the case of extremist Islamic violence. Most people would agree that the majority of Muslims are peaceful people, yet the majority of really bad stuff comes from that camp right now. I will leave this hanging, my next example will hopefully make it clear where I am going. I'm arguing that even if this is not a problem "for the most part", it does remain a problem specific to this "fraternity".

Similarly, there is this violence against women thing, the narrative ostensibly that men are all pigs. Again, the stats shows something interesting: If you make a histogram of aggression levels, ie aggression level vs number of people at that level, you get a bell curve for both men and women. For women the curve is flatter, which means that though men and women are on average equally aggressive, the median man is more aggressive than the median woman. The interesting bit is to the far right: The 5% most aggressive people in the world are almost exclusively male. That is to say, though >90% of men are peaceful creatures without pink ears and curly tails, this remains a male problem.

My point: Just because the problem is limited to a small portion of your members -- members you might want to disavow sometimes -- does not mean it isn't still a problem. In that context, I agree with you about this story of ANC factionalism. Even if the trouble is being caused by only a subset of the larger unit... it remains their problem to solve.

How? Well, I don't know... I'm just an arm-chair philosopher.

15 minutes ago, plonkster said:

We've been having many similar discussions, and I see so many parallels with other areas of life.

Jip. The Minority that is causing the problems for a group whilst the Majority does nothing to solve the groups problems.

Ito the females today: The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Wo[Men ] Do Nothing.
Ito politics today: The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Wo[Men] Do Nothing.
Ito EVERYTHING esle today: The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Wo[Men ] Do Nothing.