Eishkom Never Ceases to Amaze!

Many people in South Africa may find themselves resorting new ways of generating energy by April 2010 due to Eskom’s failure to keep up with the demands of South Africa’s power consumption. October 13th the National Energy Regulator of South Africa was faced with a proposition by Eskom to increase their electricity tariffs by 45% annually for the next three years to support their expansion programme. Consumers are outraged as the hiked tariffs would take an average suburban households electricity bill from R760 a month to R3,000 by 2012. The poor, however, will receive double their monthly allocation of 50KW of free electricity placing these extra costs on the shoulders of the taxpayers of South Africa. This just seems like another ploy for the ANC to keep their supporters happy and win votes. Hiked electricity tariffs will result in middle to upper class citizens spending less money on resources that bring income into the country, this in turn will result in higher inflation rates and manufacturing companies will be forced to cut costs by retrenching many of their poor factory workers in order to fit their electricity bills so how can this be of benefit to anyone other than Eskom themselves? Here is something that is really going to knock your socks off...Companies like BHP Billiton, the BIGGEST power consumers in South Africa will not be expected to pay the increased tariffs because they have had long standing contracts with Eskom, this will result in us paying for electricity that we don’t even use! What I find most amazing is that Eskom has money to waste on giving their top guns huge bonuses, I don’t see why as consumers we must pay for their cushioned lifestyles.

My inspiration:

http://www.fin24.com/articles/default/display_article.aspx?Articleld=1518-1786_2556081
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleld=5202514
http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/editorial/article151538.ece
http://dispatch.co.za/atticle.aspx?id=351898