“As we celebrated Freedom Day on April 27,” schemed Luke the Dude, “The New South Africa is now three decades old, give or take. A celebration with a pint of the old cold and frothy?”
It was a windless and sunny autumn day and the collection of curious conversationalists was congregating in the shade of the ancient White Stinkwood at the local Pub & Pasta.
“And then,” sneered Bob the Book, “we’ll toast the achievements of The Rainbow Nation during the years?”
“Wait a minute,” worried Irene the Queen, “may I propose just one rule: No mention of Eskom. Not once.”
“Useless!” laughed Jon the Joker.
“Why,” queried Miss Lily combatively.
“Because that is no longer possible: Sweet Irene has already voided any such rule by mentioning Eskom, once,” smiled Jon disarmingly.
“Good!” enthused The Governor, “Because if you don’t start ordering your drinks, you won’t be toasting anything!”
“Well spoken,” nodded The Prof, “friends and others, let’s indulge our host!”
And so we did, soon raising our glasses noisily.
“Speaking of Eskom,” provoked Stevie the Poet, “Has anyone seen André de Ruyter’s remote appearance before SCOPA on eTV?”
“Useless! Waste of time!” growled Jon the Joker. “They got stuck on one question: who was the senior politician involved in the looting and corruption at Eskom. No matter how many times he explained the perfectly good reasons for not naming names, they tried every trick in the interrogator’s book. Over and over.”
“Only,” said Bill the Beard, “they got ruder and more unparliamentary. One honorable member was annoyingly dishonorable. No names, in support of the stoically respectful De Ruyter.”
“Non non, Mon Ami,” Jean Jay wagged his finger, “that word, unparliamentary, is no more. Here in our, what you say, Rainbow Nation, we have the Economic F-ing Fighters in the House. It is parliamentary to disrupt, make noise, behave like swine and spit on democracy.”
“Salut!” agreed Jon the Joker. “Useless!”
“Like Eskom,” agreed Bill the Beard, “since Gwede Mantashe ousted De Ruyter after an undetectable person tried to kill him, the once internationally admired power utility’s rolling blackouts are worsening by the week as we head for winter in Darkest Africa.”
“Well …” disagreed Big Ben, “There is a beam of light.”
“Do you mean that oncoming train in the tunnel, eh Boyo?” teased Colin the Golfer.
“On the contrary,” countered Big Ben, “I mean the CEO of Remgro, Jannie Durand. He believes Eskom will be, wait for it, irrelevant in five years. By then the private sector will be doing the generation and the distribution.
“I read it on My Broadband. Shaun Jacobs quoted Durand explaining that Remgro founded the Energy Exchange to source renewable energy from producers and sell it to corporate customers. They started five years ago, are licensed by Nersa and are going strong.
“So, if Eskom doesn’t make it, South Africa has the can-do savvy to make it without them.”
For the first time, we raised our glasses to Ben and shouted “Cheers!”
E-mail: noag@hermanus.co.za
