Apparently Eskom’s complete incompetence may lead to a few jobs for Lesotho. Recent power problems have hit the Durban Textile industry especially hard.
The cuts, which Eskom attributed to power station maintenance and the shut down of one unit at the country’s only nuclear power plant, caused outages stretching from Cape Town to Johannesburg.
South Africa’s power woes have raised political temperatures in the past, with critics accusing the government of failing to address the energy crunch plaguing Africa’s biggest economy as it gears up to host the Soccer World Cup in 2010.
Prominent textile industry businessman Rory Macpherson said further power cuts may well lead to textile businesses packing up and heading for Lesotho. “There is a general sentiment from textile manufacturers that they would move to Lesotho where there are fantastic incentives. The amount of money they are losing due to power cuts is difficult to quantify, but remains considerable,” Macpherson said.
Somehow I doubt that massive amounts of jobs are going to suddenly become available in Lesotho, but I suppose crazier things have happened. Full story here. You can read about Eskom’s load shedding policy here. Eskom was having some serious problems in Cape Town when I was still around, so it is good to see that things have only gone downhill since then.
Supposedly Eskom is working on a pebble bed reactor (PBR), which among other things would be an implementation of new nuclear technology.
Let the jobs come. We are waiting.