Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Powerlessness to the People

We switched our geyser off from 8am to 10pm every day. Why should we bother if we are "rewarded" with 4 hour power cuts?

Eskom and Joburg City Power struck a blow for economic progress in our suburb this evening with the first of many promised blackouts from 6pm to 10pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Just think of that: no possibility of cooked meals for 4 nights a week. This is not good.
On top of that our idiot President muses in public about how consumers haven't cut their electricity consumption by the required 10%. We are encouraged to get energy-saving light bulbs at R20 a bulb, but then they announce that these will be given out for free, so of course how many people are going to rush out and buy them in that case?
We are encouraged to save power during peak periods (like 6pm to 10pm) and our reward for doing this is that for 4 nights a week the power will be cut off anyway. Thanks, Eskom, but I'm #@cked if I'm switching off the geyser voluntarily of that's how you repay me!
Our darling bright spark minister says we should switch out our lights early, but does nothing to get the government offices to do so. She relies on the media to do it, even when she insults the intelligence of the general public. And Smart-Alec Erwin lies to everyone by saying that economic development will not be affected by Eskom. What an idiot!
Eskom wants us to save 10% power, so it puts up the costs by 14%, just to make sure, and requests a 60% price hike! It wants us to install solar-powered geysers, but adds in so much paperwork that it raises the cost of the equipment. And you expect these people to run a country!

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