It took Kgosientsho Ramokgopa a two-week road trip to the country’s power stations to reveal precisely what every South African has known since 2015 – South Africa’s energy crisis has reached gargantuan proportions.
During a press briefing, the clearly disheartened and disillusioned Night King delivered the stale news that South Africans are in for a hard winter.
“Essentially, we have a situation in the country where demand far outstrips supply and we know that supply comes from the installed fleet of Eskom, over 52 gigawatts of generating capacity,” Ramokgopa said.
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Ramokgopa, recently appointed minister of electricity in the Presidency, admitted while the power station visits were “really cool”, he couldn’t help but feel the ‘promotion’ to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s parallel Cabinet was more of a political route to failure than a career triumph.
“I thought it was going to be like the DA shadow ministers’ gigs because their sole mandate is to spam the country’s inboxes with complaints and stories of imagined victories,” said Ramokgopa.
“But, there is an unrealistic expectation for me to solve this problem that has been in the making since the dawn of democracy,” he added tearfully.
Acting CEO of Eskom, Calib Cassim, while sympathising with Ramokgopa’s plight, expressed relief and gratitude over working with the new minister, which some Eskom staff affectionately dubbed the ‘summer child’.
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“Summer child” is because he lives among the chosen ones in Bryntirion estate in Tshwane,” explained Cassim.
“But, Ramokgopa is definitely the lesser evil we have endured here at Eskom.
“We still have unspent budget from the Eskom catering fund because Ramokopa didn’t eat much on his visits, opting just for a pie and coke each time,” said Cassim, who doubles as the powerless parastatal’s bean counter.
Although, given Eskom’s precarious purse problems, Cassim hasn’t had a substantial amount of beans to count since taking up the position.
“On good days, there’s barely enough beans to fill mini-sized KOO baked beans can, let alone money for Koeberg’s maintainence,” Cassim said mournfully.
While Cassim was careful to avoid the elephant in the room, there are still whispers of the Minister-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, that still feeds at the trough.
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“That’s why André De Ruyter had to go into hiding, because we can never stop feeding You-Know-Who, just because it was said on TV, doesn’t mean he has left,” said a nervous anonymous employee.
“André foolishly thought he would be the CEO who fixed Eskom, but he was unlucky number 21 to fall,” said the employee.
*This story is based on real events some of which has been fictionalised for satirical purposes.
*Sponsored by White Monopoly Capital and Things-mainstream-media-won’t cover.
