A nasty nip in the air floors Eskom

OK. So it is spring, traditionally a season of changeable weather. Sometimes, it has even snowed in the Cape in November. This year, however, an October cold snap came as such a surprise that Eskom is reported to be "struggling" to avoid a national blackout. Note the connotations of the word "struggle". It is used by local hacks to evoke sympathy for a bureaucratic, bumbling, parastatal organisation. This is an organisation that for the past 14 years has so taken its eye off the ball that it's staff members cannot be trusted to plan anything further ahead than banking their next fat pay check. One of the blissfully-naïve reasons Eskom puts forward for its inability to meet demand is that some power stations have "run out of coal" while others have wet coal. Dear heaven. Wet coal still burns. It also burns better than dry coal as any steam engine buff will tell you. Oh, Spigot forgets: You have to order coal in advance, something that is clearly beyond Eskom staff.