The real reason Eskom has failed

What irony is this that I can see?
Is BEE killing the ANC?
Eskom got rid of its skilled engineers
Who travelled abroad with very few tears

From the late 90's severance-packages were given
Flooding the market with experienced technicians
Power providers got wind of the decree
And snapped up our skills with such great glee  

Major re-conductoring projects in Ireland
Plenty of jobs in UK, Oz and New Zealand
Electrix and other foreign recruiters
Enabled by BEE to become massive skills looters

Then Eskom had to train and retrain
But never made up for the massive brain drain
Fifteen years later the problem is dire
As maintenance dates for equipment expire

In twenty-o-six (2006) a bell sounded the threat
When countrywide blackouts caused anger and fret
Angry Cape Towners changed their vote for the first time
And the Province followed suit in twenty-o-nine (2009)

Then Ms. Letlape set out to ‘fix things' in arrears
And employ ‘two new staff members every day for five years'
Strict BEE quotas were certainly no laugh
Demanding one black woman for every two new staff!

The madness then furthered and went to extremes
300 African Americans recruited to fill BEE dreams
Recorded as SA citizens Eskom's books claimed!
But soon they went home and just 68 remained

Engineers and technicians and thousands of jobs
Filled with less skilled creates predictable odds
The immoral hoo-hah of gender and race
And years down the line all the jobs are defaced

Now Eskom asks 46 000 staff to take ‘packages'
Because there's no money left to salvage the wreckages
The taxpayers' money has gone up in smoke
They are left without power and their businesses go broke

Voluntary packages cost the country more
‘Cause the most highly-skilled take them and find work offshore
Unemployable and less productive workers have to remain
And infrastructure takes a nose-dive because of failure to maintain

Why cut all these jobs when Mr. Zuma has agreed
To a R1-trillion nuclear deal the NDP says we don't need?
The ANC must save itself from bankruptcy though
And a big Russian deal seems just the way to go

Why does government shelter Eskom from competition?
When private providers could save us from attrition
Independently feeding electricity to the grid
Opposition parties have long been screaming for competitive bid

The only state company that asks people not to use its product!
And goes ‘cap in hand' to Treasury for a R20 billion bailout
Whose money is this though that Eskom has accrued?
It's Tom, Sipho and Lindy who all pay tax on their food!

An assortment of non-engineers we see
Eskom's Board shows this explicitly
Former Miss SA's husband and an ex-Chair of SABC
A sim-card salesman and the head of a theatre company

But Mr. Zuma blames Eskom's woes on Apartheid's legacy
Ironically he's right ‘cause BEE's plain discriminatory!
'Never again' is what Mandela did say
Black or white domination causes Justice dismay

Power cuts, water cuts, crumbling roads and drains
Municipalities follow suit bound in BEE chains
Desperate voters might use the ballot box to complain
And a power-cut for a dominating party ordain

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