The Times

Outages are here to stay, Eskom says - hail or sunshine. This blatant message is the latest news headline in South Africa media.

Obviously this message will be a blow to the economy. Loss of production and trading in shopping centres is a huge burden on any developing market. Ironically South Africans have never experienced such shortages in the past, so why now? Therefore, being new to us, we will have to adapt to this new lifestyle of frequent blackouts and interruptions.

However if shortages are here to stay then it should be fairly distributed in the sense that all citizens living in all areas should share the shortages equally. Without being prejudiced, I suggest Eskom concentrate on providing a full supply of electricity locally before expanding into neighbouring courtiers.

Ebrahim

Durban