Dear Eskom Boss… whoever you are

The CE of Eskom (Whoever The Hell That Is),

Megawatt Park,

Sunninghill,

Sandton

Dear Jacob Maroga,

Or Bobby Godsell. Or Jacob Maroga. Or Mpho Makwana… Bugger this. Dear Whoever is in charge of Eskom right now. Actually, I’d love to know exactly who is in charge of the country’s sole power utility, because so far as I can tell, no one in government, the media or the public in general seems to know whom we get to blame for the country’s power outages. news24.com called you chaps Eksom. See? You’ve managed to confuse the media as to you even are. This is an unacceptable state of affairs. The Eskom CE is something of an institution. He’s the guy we blame for everything. This is like robbing that awful sitcom Friends of Chandler Bing, not to mention that this important letter will now have to be left with the security guard at the gate, who will no doubt use it as a coaster for his tupperware dish of oily chicken till Megawatt Park has a chief he can deliver it to.

See, here’s the thing. Everyone who’s got an opinion on the Eksom matter is missing the mark. I was down in the Ministry’s canteen a few minutes ago making a cappuccino (yes, the Minister for Internal Understanding makes his own coffee. You can’t trust these public-official types with as delicate a task as making a cappuccino) when the power tripped, just as I was steaming my government-issue milk. My shot of espresso was ready, but I was without steamed milk. Can you imagine my agony, as I frantically phoned around, to find out whether any other buildings in the vicinity had electricity? But I was destined to be disappointed. Apparently it was a city-wide outage and it was your fault, Eksom. I got someone to call you to ask what the matter was, only to be told that there was no Chief Executive at Eksom. Here’s where I begin to get annoyed. Who do I complain to? Barbara Hogan? That won’t solve my problem. I don’t particularly care anymore who runs the place, as long as I can get electricity to my espresso machine!

This brings me to Jacob Maroga. This is the guy who generously padded his own pockets in the midst of last year’s load shedding fiasco. He paid himself handsomely while the country lost millions upon millions due to power outages. Outrageous! Everyone knows that the only people who are allowed to get away with such behaviour are high-ranking government officials. Eksom isn’t in the government, even though it is owned by the government. So I’m afraid Eksom executives will have to lift their socks, get off their bottoms and do some work, unlike us government officials. Hey, that’s the burden of being an elected official, answerable to no one but the 45 million or so people in the country. If you want to be paid millions to do nothing, you’ll have to become a government minister. This sort of misunderstanding makes me wonder whether I shouldn’t perhaps write a green paper entitled Who Gets To Plunder Public Funds Whilst Doing Absolutely Nothing, A Guide. I would too, except that would be working, something which is in direct contravention with my job description as a government minister.

If you’re familiar at all with the publications of the Ministry of Internal Understanding (and as Eksom boss, you should be!) you’ll know that I’ve published a widely read Guideline To The Race Card. It has been circulated amongst government departments as well as our alliance partners, and we’ve seen some remarkable improvements in race-cardisms coming from government. However, I was terribly disappointed to see the Black Management Forum (BMF) and the ANC Youth League hauling out the race card against Bobby Godsell, the former chairperson at Eksom. I can understand the ANCYL using the race card all wrong, being barely able to read and all that, but the BMF? I thought those guys were smart people in pinstripe suits and bald heads. Clearly this country’s illiteracy issues are more widespread than previously thought. The BMF and YL accused Bobby Godsell of racism because of Maroga’s resignation. I know, their reasoning barely makes any sense to anyone. They are, of course, smoking their socks. Bobby Godsell was a great asset to COSATU in the pre-1994 years, working alongside Cyril Ramaphosa. Anyone who works alongside Ramaphosa and COSATU can’t possibly be racist. You can no more accuse Bobby Godsell of being racist than you can accuse Ngconde Balfour of being handsome.

Besides, this racism debate is clouding the real issue here: How am I to make a cappuccino without any electricity? Look, I can solve your problem very easily. Get someone who knows what the hell they’re doing into power at Eksom (excuse the pun). Get that person to whip some esprit de corps into the workforce there. Make some electricity. Simple.

I hope that your security guard will pass this on before my espresso gets cold…

Yours in Watts and Power,

COMRADE GOOD CHARLIE, Minister for the Internal Understanding of New and Confusing Polokwane Resolutions