[imagesource: Moneyweb]

Load shedding, especially at short notice, is enough to make one’s blood boil.

Sorry, you’ll need a gas cooker for that.

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter’s tenure at Eskom has been a bumpy ride from the moment he took the reins in January 2020.

As load shedding has increased in the past few weeks, so too have the calls for his head. In some cases, literally.

MyBroadband reports that de Ruyter has had to hire personal bodyguards after threats made against him:

In response to one of the threats, De Ruyter opened a criminal case of intimidation against EFF Kwa-Zulu Natal leader Vusi Khoza after he encouraged people to hunt the “useless fools” at Eskom and “moer” and “bliksem” them.

“This thing of load-shedding and Eskom will only stop when we stand up,” he stated.

“Find out where they [Eskom employees] stay, their physical address, drag them into the streets and bliksem them,” Khoza continued.

“If that’s instigation, then so be it,” he added.

That is instigation, Mr Khoza, as well as intimidation.

Shortly after running his mouth, the EFF’s KZN leader was forced to issue this clarification:

Pursuant to the attached Order of the High Court, I wish to state that I do not condone acts of intimidation and threats, as listed in paragraph 2.1 of this order, directed at employees of Applicant 1 and to Applicant 2. pic.twitter.com/rVQeX1Ez9h

— Vusi Khoza (@vusumuzikhoza) November 12, 2021

One could call that an embarrassment, but by virtue of his association with the EFF, that’s something Khoza is obviously not capable of.

The Durban High Court also ordered that Khoza be “interdicted from making any threatening or intimidating gestures on all social media platforms”.

Anyway, he switched targets:

Pre 1994, Black Africans were disenfranchised, denied right to vote, by law. FW De Klerk was voted by whites only, a tiny minority. He couldn’t therefore be regarded as President of South Africa. He is not our President. He is a racist murderer who must rot in hell.#FuckDeKlerk

— Vusi Khoza (@vusumuzikhoza) November 15, 2021

Back to de Ruyter and Eskom, which is now dealing with acts of sabotage.

During a press conference on Friday, he said Eskom is “exposed and there is a need for the police and state security to step in”.

He had previously shied away from stating sabotage was occurring, saying he had chosen “not to attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence”.

De Ruyter is also at war with Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, the guy who fell for an April Fool’s Joke so badly he recycled the nonsense at an Australian mining conference.

Here’s City Press:

Mantashe is trying to stop De Ruyter and [Pravin] Gordhan from committing the country to a radical phasing out of coal as an energy source.

Image: Polity

Doing so would, among other things, transform the Witbank-Middelburg industrial complex of mining, steel and nickel processing into a region of ghost towns plagued by unemployment, but would help Eskom to escape its huge debt trap of R395 billion.

It’s alleged that Mantashe and his department are hampering the purchase of emergency power in order to push their own agendas.

For some reason, Mantashe hates clean, renewable energy.

Instead, he is continuing with plans to build two new small 750MW coal-fired power stations in 2023 and 2027, despite environmental organisations going to court to try to stop him.

“I will go to court to defend it. These are experimental projects to test clean coal technology.”

He also spoke recently at the African Energy Week conference in Cape Town, decrying global pressure to abandon fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, according to data from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), 2021 is the worst year ever for load shedding in South Africa.

Rounding out the top three is 2020 and 2019.

But sure, let’s keep relying on coal to turn things around.