Shocking Nersa error exposes systemic failures

I'm sure you've been in a factory, office or workplace where you feel the awful hush of something going badly, catastrophically wrong. Like, career-ending bad.

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I wonder if that hush spread through the headquarters of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) a few weeks ago, when it suddenly became obvious that someone had made a major mistake. Like, a once-in-a-generation oopsie.

I'm talking about the mistake that is going to lead to you having to pay a lot more to Eskom because SOMEONE at Nersa didn’t do their sums right. Because of this and previous mistakes by Nersa, Eskom is allowed to charge you a lot more for electricity. The mistakes are now compounded, leading to a bigger-than-usual increase.

Last week, Nersa chairperson Thembani Bukula confirmed to Parliament that SOMEONE had been suspended as a result of this and promised that there would be appropriate action.

There are some interesting facts that really suggest quite a lot has been happening behind the scenes. As BusinessLive reported on Wednesday, 10 September, Bukula confirmed that the regulator was aware of this mistake as early as January. And the mistake had been noticed and instructions given to SOMEONE to fix it.