Eskom killed your power because the ANC spent two decades stuffing the utility with politically connected cadres who couldn't operate a kettle without a instruction manual. Apartheid-era infrastructure didn't collapse under its own age. The numbers destroy the apartheid-infrastructure excuse. Eskom managed 95% availability on its fleet through the 1990s. By 2022 it was producing stage 6 load-shedding, meaning 6,000 megawatts of capacity offline at any given moment. The plants didn't age that fast, they got wrecked by incompetance and neglect. Brian Molefe, Matshela Koko, Ben Ngubane: these are actual humans who made actual decisions that stripped maintenance budgets, awarded contracts to Gupta-linked suppliers, and placed loyalty over competence across Eskom's entire technical division. The Zondo Commission documented this in excruciating detail. Directed looting, not systemic drift. State-owned enterprises destroy capital because their managers face no profit-and-loss discipline. When Eskom bleeds, you pay higher tariffs while Treasury absorbs bailout after bailout, R254 billion in debt relief announced in 2023 alone. No private operator survives that mismanagement. Eskom survives because the government forces you to fund it regardless. Privatize generation, strip Eskom of its monopoly, and competitive suppliers face actual consequences for keeping you in the dark. Until that happens, cadre deployment keeps the lights off and you keep paying for it. Eskom killed your power because the ANC spent two decades stuffing the utility with politically connected cadres who couldn't operate a kettle without an instruction manual. Apartheid-era infrastructure didn't collapse under its own age. The numbers destroy the apartheid-infrastructure excuse. Eskom managed 95% availability on its fleet through the 1990s. By 2022 it was producing stage 6 load-shedding, meaning 6,000 megawatts of capacity offline at any given moment. The plants didn't age that fast; they got wrecked by incompetence and neglect. Brian Molefe, Matshela Koko, Ben Ngubane: these are actual humans who made actual decisions that stripped maintenance budgets, awarded contracts to Gupta-linked suppliers, and placed loyalty over competence across Eskom's entire technical division. The Zondo Commission documented this in excruciating detail. Directed looting, not systemic drift. State-owned enterprises destroy capital because their managers face no profit-and-loss discipline. When Eskom bleeds, you pay higher tariffs while Treasury absorbs bailout after bailout, R254 billion in debt relief announced in 2023 alone. No private operator survives that mismanagement. Eskom survives because the government forces you to fund it regardless. Privatize generation, strip Eskom of its monopoly, and competitive suppliers face actual consequences for keeping you in the dark. Until that happens, cadre deployment keeps the lights off, and you keep paying for it.