Let's talk about Eskom.

Eskom belongs to the State - mostly, sort-of, somewhat, whichever. The State has certain conditions that all their "affiliates" have to comply with (as with Telkom and Sasol). There are other shareholders involved, but the State has the final say.

As we know (and the same happened with the white government) certain race groups get the top jobs. In the old days though our government made sure that the top dogs knew what they were doing or they got fired. Things had to happen, the right things with the right stuff at the right times. Today things are happening. Not the right things with the wrong things and the only thing that's really happening is nothing.

Met a guy a couple of days ago that works at one of the power stations. What he told me explains everything. And frankly, it's scary.

We know there's a shift in black mentality that they're above manual labour. They all want the top jobs and those with some education and the right connections can really coin it. It seems to me that there are a lot of these employed by Eskom. Black females walking around all day with clipboard in hand not having the faintest clue what's happening or how and when it should be happening. Black managers that make decisions on basis of what their labourers are telling them. Labourers that haven't gone through the same training that the whites have done.

Boilermakers used to do a two year apprenticeship before starting their career. It then takes another year or two to qualify. Today these apprentices get a three month training course (no hands-on work) then gets allocated to a job without any experience of what the job actually entails. And Eskom has lots of them. And of course, they get preferential treatment.

White guys don't stand a chance. If they feel that an additional certification will help in performing a better job, they get ignored or shot down. They make do with what they learn on the job. This is the scary part. When not qualified to perform certain tasks but doing it for the sake of getting the job done can be disastrous. People can get hurt and killed, power stations can blow up and substations explode.

Motivation is seriously lacking and it shows. Typical example - the Blue Bulls won the Super 14 series last year but since their coach left they're just about last on the log this year. That's the difference one person can make. Lacking discipline and motivation only disaster awaits us. The whiteys are no longer interested. Maintenance jobs that should take three days now take five. Resources and equipment are being abused. Sheets of metal destined for boilers are turned into "braais", openly. The guys were reprimanded for building stainless steel braais out of scrap pieces but that was too late for the new apprentices who now build them openly from new sheets. They're black and they'd rather sell stainless steel braais on the weekends than worry about how the job will get done.

If this is happening at one power station it's probably happening at them all. And this is just touching on the subject. Bad workmanship, dangerous shortcuts and so-called short-term solutions that never gets done properly are just par of the course.

No wonder more and more people refer to South Africa as another Zimbabwe waiting in the wings. With major services fast collapsing and the ignorance, stubborn attitude and preferrential treatment of total idiots because they're black, government can never win, never mind keep providing what the whites built up during years of boycotts and waging an expensive war on our borders.

Let's have your ideas -

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