On Monday this week the High Court in South Africa ruled that the State Owned Entity Eskom who supplies the electricity has to reveal their contracts for purchasing and transporting coal and diesel. Eskom argued that these contracts were too sensitive to be revealed to the public and needed protecting.
This was an appeal from an earlier court case having the same outcome so there is nowhere to hide yet we know this information is going to be delayed for as long as possible. This for Eskom is their worst nightmare as so much will be revealed and none of it is good news for them.
Many believe load shedding was encouraged to last way longer than it should which also included sabotage of certain power stations all down to corruption. As long as the country was crippled with power stations blamed for having no maintenance the opportunity was presented to the few who could benefit financially. The thought that load shedding happened back in 2007 and has taken 18 years to fix tells you so much.
The contracts should reveal who or what companies suppled diesel to the generators and at what prices. The coal supplied to the power stations by which trucking companies and again at what pricing. This is going to be a whose who in the government as the companies with a little research will link individuals. This is the sensitive part they do not want anyone to know yet we all kind of knew who was involved and why load shedding got so bad.
The pushing of the contract to hire the Karpowership diesel turbines from Turkey was just too obvious. The sabotaging of the power stations so the country was more reliant on diesel and became a major power source instead of a back up solution. This was not by chance and was all part of the plan.
NERSA which is the National Energy Regulator of South Africa are just as bad and are going to be in as much trouble as Eskom as they would have been privy to these "secret" contracts. Like Eskom they had no idea that these would be made public and must be now thinking of the worse case scenarios. Their R86 billion mistake last year which added an extra 3% on to this years and next years price increases was an intended mistake because the figures are just too high to make it a genuine mistake.
There are just certain bits of information you cannot justify like the coal purchases dropping by 34% but the actual total cost has risen by 5%. Anyone with a brain will tell you that the purchase price of coal went up by around 40% and at this time coal was stable. Only now are we seeing coal prices spike and this coal increase on a NERSA report was between 2022 and 2024. The dates have been blacked out and it will make for a fascinating read when the information is released.
The South African Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources previously stated that those importing diesel for Eskom would remain a secret because we all expect he or family members are those importing the diesel. I hope for his sake he or his family are not on the records anywhere but he was the one handing out the import permits. He was the main promoter of the Karpowerships until he got blocked by environmentalists.
South Africa is an ongoing crime scene with rampant corruption not only in government, but also in many businesses. Backhanders are common practice and it is actually quite sickening to know those trying to do normal legal business practices are being disadvantaged. The revealing of these documents could put an end to the current government regime and see a new party take charge in 2027. Change is definitely needed as 33 years for one party to rule has not benefitted the country or it's people.