Power lies in no electricity monopoly

Your editorial correctly identifies the real and immediate victims of Eskom’s crisis: workers and communities whose livelihoods are being destroyed by spiralling electricity costs (“Eskom crisis calls for urgent job-saving plans”, 31 December).

- Nicholas Woode-Smith

Where it goes wrong is in its proposed solution.

Calls for job-saving subsidies and tariff interventions treat the symptoms while entrenching the disease.

Eskom’s electricity is not expensive because markets have failed. It is expensive because markets have been excluded.

Eskom is a state monopoly with no meaningful competition, no price discovery and no incentive to innovate or reduce costs.

Its tariffs are not a reflection of scarcity or demand, but of decades of political interference, mismanagement and corruption.