Impunity

Impunity is when crimes are committed with no negative consequences to the perpetrator. The result is that the criminal is strengthened and made bolder than before. The criminal immediately becomes more likely to commit even more outrageous crimes.

Impunity is what the gang of rogues in charge of South Africa’s power generator Eskom has. COSATU demands accountability from them. See the first linked item below.

The ANC calls upon Alec Erwin to deal with the Eskom problem. See the second link below. That won’t do any good at all. The scoundrel Erwin has already been busy doing the opposite to what the ANC is asking, by banging the drum for the Eskom bandits on Moneyweb. Click here to read about it.

Late last year the Eskom scammers orchestrated the first “load-shedding” (euphemism for power cuts) while lobbying for an 18% price hike. A few days pre-Polokwane, President Thabo Mbeki suddenly discovered an unprecedented capacity for apology, and by that means created a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for the Eskom plotters. The electricity regulator, NERSA, a far weaker body than Eskom, caved in to them and awarded them 14.2%. That was impunity. The Eskom grifters then helped themselves to fat millions in bonuses, and lay low over the Christmas holiday.

Then from the third week in January the Eskom pirates started hitting the country hard again. They even shut down the mines. After that they were given 60 billion (yes, billion) rands of taxpayers’ money as a soft loan by Erwin’s close colleague Trevor Manuel. That was impunity, rewarded, again.

This week they started whacking us again with the odious “load-shedding” power cuts, while (guess what?) going back to the price hike and asking for another 67% according to Business Report or 60% according to Business Day. See the third and fourth links below. Will this be another replay of the old impunity-reward routine? Could be!

Or maybe not. Some people say that even a worm will eventually turn to face its attacker. There are signs that a serious concerted effort is taking shape to surround and bring down the lords of the rogue empire that Eskom has become. See the fifth item, about the call for an audit. But also note that Raymond Parsons, the eternal capitalist lobbyist, who we had thought was out to grass already, is trying to smuggle in the World Bank on the back of the Eskom imbroglio. As fast as their business interests propel them towards acting as a national bourgeoisie, so, just as fast, does the domineering Imperialist monopoly-capitalist interest click in, like an automatic generator, attempting to dazzle us and blind us all once again.

This time it may be different. Eishkomgate amounts to a new “arms deal”. Of course it is not about arms, but then the original arms deal was not primarily about arms, either. Like the other arms deal, the Eskom shenanigans are in the final analysis designed to push the country into the abject shape and subordinate position desired by the global finance capitalists, or in other words, by Imperialism. The rest is nearly all smoke, mirrors, and dust in the eyes. But the Mail & Guardian has begun the necessary process of exposé. See the well-prepared and humorous sixth item, on the Teflon top brass (i.e. the Eskom mafia).

If you thought that the third TM (after Thabo Mbeki and Trevor Manuel) was free of taint in this matter, then be prepared to think again. Read Barry Sergeant’s blistering, acidic, treatment of Tito Mboweni in the final item.

Click on these links:

COSATU condemns Eskom's tariff hike proposal (1636 words)

Electricity Tariffs, COSATU, Arms Deal, Sharpeville, ANC Media Release (625 words)

Eskom wants 67% tariff increase, Ethel Hazelhurst, Business Report (421 words)

Now Eskom seeks extra hike, this time 60%, le roux, Njobeni, Business Day (679 words)

Eskom's request for hikes sparks audit call, Enslin-Payne, Business Report (458 words)

The Teflon top brass, Kevin Davie, Mail and Guardian (1225 words)

Towers of Babble, Barry Sergeant, Moneyweb (741 words)

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