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The Great Johannesburg Blackout
Electricity CHAOS like never before – cost of electricity to rise 67%
Last night I was sitting at home watching Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, which frankly, is a show that everyone in this country, including the Govt should be watching because it is about getting things done!! Honestly, its the best Advert for New York I’ve ever seen.
I was watching it of course with my generator running because my entire neighbourhood was pitch black.
But this morning at work, the stories were pouring in from co-workers.
I was LUCKY! In my neighbourhood the only power outage I had was the planned one – from 6-9pm. But the rest of Johannesburg was not so lucky. The Star newspaper now reports that 18 generators broke yesterday.
One woman who lives on a high spot in the west of Johannesburg, said that for as far as your eye could see, over to Sandton (where the rich live), it was pitch black. Even up to parts of Midrand that are on the horizon, she could see nothing but the dark.
Others say that travelling through all these affluent parts of the city was complete chaos. It was night time and pitch black and traffic was hell.
This morning The Star newspaper reports that Eskom prices will increase by 67%.
And just the general inefficiency of this country is getting to even the most positive people.
One oldish lady I know who never hesitates, if need be, to work on weekends or even to work through the night at our work, complained to me today. She said that the company is processing overtime and paying them 2 months later! Everything inside the company is so inefficient.
She complained: Fuel prices have exploded. She lives in Pretoria and drives 50 Km to work each day and for overtime. She has to pay all these additional costs. Her car’s tyres need replacing, but the company is so inefficient now, that she has to wait for her overtime monies. (I hear a bunch of resignations are due this morning, but mostly from black staff).
I work in a 9 storey building in the Johannesburg CBD across from the 50 storey Carlton Centre which used to be the pride of Johannesburg. The Cartlon Hotel, which once was a 5 star hotel has been barricaded and shut down for several years now. The rich of the world used to walk these streets in the “Golden city”.
The lackadaisical attitude to work and progress can be seen everywhere. Our hot urns from where we get hot water for our coffee had no water this morning. Then when I tried to switch on the kettle to boil some water the kettle did not work. One of the maids came and told me that the kettle does work, you just have to stand there and hold the switch until it eventually comes on! So I stood there and held the switch!
A Coloured man walked in and said, “No electricity, no water…” and he went off and ranted. He told me that the suburb where he lived was also without power. “Its a nuisance”, he said, “just as you get home, the power goes off. The power is on when you don’t need it, but the power is off when you need it!”
I joked with my co-workers. Maybe we must start bringing wood to work to make fire. Don’t forget your firelighters now.
I must start doing like the blacks do. If I need hot water and there is no hot water, I must take a desk, chop it up and light a fire.
I went and complained to a manager about our kitchen and pause area asking that something be done about the ridiculous state of affairs.
One lady told me that last night she was at a butchery on her way home. The Portuguese owner (who had fled here either from Angola or Mozambique), was SCREAMING and launching into tirades about this country and the people. He said “People here are too adaptable. Crime goes up. They build bigger walls. He says he has a house in Portugal on the beach. He is fedup living like this and is leaving the country.”
We discussed the Portuguese people who fled from Mozambique in 1975. They ran away with just the shirts on their backs.
Last night’s chaos freaked people out. One Afrikaans lady, who keeps joking to me about strapping herself on to the wing of a Boeing 747 to get to Australia, was saying that she and her husband are now thinking of going to New Zealand instead of Australia because its easier to get there. I calmed her down. I told her to rather wait the 6-8 months for the Australians to come back to her with an answer. DO NOT MAKE AN EMOTIONAL DECISION I told her. Your fall-back position is New Zealand. So give it time. Stick it out for a few months. Just now you run to New Zealand and you waste a lot of money and then it takes you 5 years or however long to then get to Australia. The country will die slowly. This is Africa. Everything here happens in slow motion. The country is slowly sliding down.
“But the country will crash after 2010” she said. I told her that we’d been discussing that sort of thing on my site. We know about that. The FIFA Soccer world cup will probably take place and when it does it will be the biggest financial loss in FIFA’s history. The country will then just fall down even more.
I think this morning you will see people scrambling again for generators, torches and other equipment. The supermarket where I shop has more torches and lanterns. There will be a boom in those items.
I must go now, because I heard that the Johannesburg CBD is due for a power cut at 2pm today. So let me get cracking on work to do!!
Article Source: AfricanCrisis.co.za
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