I have really enjoyed the kind of work our colleague Hendrik Hancke has been doing on Eskom. They are not the kind of stories that would win him great journalistic awards for bravery or enterprising investigation.
But they are as significant because they illuminate something important about the state of the country and where it could go.
Kabous, as he is affectionately known in our newsroom, began visiting power stations a few months ago to talk to the women and men who run them about the difficulties of trying to keep the lights on.
There was a lot of scepticism at first. We had read all the stories about how rotten to the core the state-owned electricity company was. Corruption, theft, neglect and sabotage were words that were often associated with power stations and those who ran them.
Those of us who had read Truth to Power, the best-seller by former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter, remembered how the author described many of those who ran the power-stations as incompetent laggards who pitched up to work in designer suits and sharp-pointed shoes that, although fashionable, were woefully unsuitable for “walking the floor” at a power plant.
What could Kabous possibly get from such people that was of use to our understanding of how the power stations work?
If what the former CEO and others were saying was true, Eskom was a hopeless case — a casualty of debilitating government policies that had chased away highly skilled engineers and left the organisation with too few technical people who actually knew what they were doing.
Indeed Eskom was, and continues to be, in crisis. As I write this, I am an hour away from yet another round of load-shedding — the second of three in our area today.
But what Kabous’s tour of the power stations has shown is that not all is lost at Eskom and that there are still highly dedicated, skilled and experienced people at the power stations who are working hard to turn the company’s fortunes around and make load-shedding a thing of the past.
At the end of May he visited Lethabo, Eskom’s best-performing power station. Situated between Vanderbijlpark and Sasolburg in the Free State, Lethabo is run by general manager Karabo Rakgolela.
Although fairly new at the helm, Rakgolela is an old “Eskomite”, having been with the company for more than 30 years. He was not parachuted into his new post but had worked his way up the system, starting out as a trainee at Hendrina in Mpumalanga.
It is the same kind of story you find with his peers at Matimba and Medupi, as well as Duvha — whose general manager Lourence Chauke is featured in this week’s edition.
More than the politicians and Eskom board members, it is these people at the coalface who are slowly pulling us out of the energy crisis.
As long-suffering citizens and Eskom customers we have every reason to be sceptical when ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says there will be no load-shedding by Christmas. We can also be forgiven for being sceptical of the smooth-talking electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.
After all, it was the work of politicians that plunged the country into darkness in the first place.
But when it is Rakgolela at Lethabo who bets a steak dinner with Kabous that there will be no load-shedding by Christmas, one has reason to hope.
Just as long as politics and politicians of all hues get out the way and allow the experts to do their work without interference.
The biggest lesson from these stories, however, is that South Africa is often not short of skills. But toxic politics and prejudice often prevent such skills from shining through.
It was the toxic politics of the state capture era that drove some of the talent out of Eskom and forced the rest to go underground.
And then those in power wasted too much time on a witch-hunt of those who were thought to have collaborated with the state capture crew.
As a result, fear and suspicion reigned supreme, making the environment unsuitable for those who had been in the system for many years to thrive.
Instead of conducting a proper skills audit, the executives went around publicly bemoaning the shortage of engineers — at times even insinuating that employment equity policies were to blame. This must have been demoralising to the likes of Chauke who had worked their way up through the ranks and knew what they were doing.
The lesson we should take from the Eskom experience, especially as South Africa prepares to enter a new phase where one-party dominance will be a thing of the past, is that no matter how troubled an institution may be, there may still be people within it with talent and determination to change things around.
We should never paint everyone with the same brush.
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