The last white chairman of the power utility here Eskom, Dr Ian Marais already had extensive plans in place for a sub saharan grid uniting all regions and a way of upliftment of the poor. He was the same man that fostered the electrification for all in SA. They had approached the world bank for financing; didn't happen.
Then the ANC took over and implemented AA and BEE and the dream died c1994. It was also the year the New Works Division was closed down and we all had to seek other areas with in the organisation for employment or take a severance package.
In the 80s and 90s when we were building power stations, one unit cost between 1.2 and 1.6 billion US dollars, most of our stations are six packs. Today, 7Bn would not get two units built, then you have the added costs of distribution infrastructure (power lines) It is not like simply making a tee junction to an existing line. The lines run 100-300+ km to the central distribution centre in Johannesburg. From there all power is redistributed on secondary lines (lower voltages)
Well the electrification for all was great. All the blacks have free electricity as they never pay their bills, pre paid is optional here, and their black corrupt brothers in municipalities don't switch them off. Even if they did, they would merely run an extension to their neighbor's house who also is not paying their bills.
10 years ago we had to start bring mothballed inefficient stations back on line requiring huge upgrades in controls as the old stuff was old school and all those folk are now retired (instrumentation). About 5 years ago, our wonderful gubmint started supplying Zimbabwe with power at the expense of SA consumers that had to tolerate frequent black outs.
And guess what? Zimbabwe never paid their account either. The government was forced to stop supplying Zim and now Zims are the ones having to tolerate daily power outs.
And our wonderful AA and BEE
jobs for mates programs have ensure diddly squat gets maintained; so that leaves many places in the cities w/o power for sometimes weeks. Simple things like supply/demand and capacity are not understood by "
city planners" who are also part of the
jobs for mates program and is akin to simply do this on a bigger scale
Transformers blow up and of course we all know this is a stock item somewhere - not! (they have to be built on order btw)
(Live) cables are regularly stolen by the other black enterprises to be sold for scrap, not part of the
jobs for mates program but kissing cousins nonetheless.
And this is SA where there is some
"semblance of law" ROTFLMAO. Just imagine how efficient it will be say in Mozambique, Angola Malawi et al.
The USA will not be supplying cable as we make our own here thanks to whities that still run that industry. The only thing to be imported is technology as the
jobs for mates club have no frigging clue how to build a power station.
In my lil hick town, we have had street lights out for over three years. They cannot even replace the lamps as their cherry picker is always broken. When whites ruled, the artisans fixed the cherry picker themselves. Now it has to go out on tender as many of the "new artisans" were semi skilled helpers/assistants in the old days.
Yup, send them some 7bn, it will create a batch of new
jobs for mates all with Beamers and Mercs and SUVs and Audis. Hell they won't even buy your American cars like a Chrysler LoL.
Two years ago, they were constructing a new toll road (±30km), well actually an upgrade, all roads upgraded now become toll roads, there are no brand new roads being constructed. Anyway, there is this previously disadvantaged road inspektah with an orange beacon on his roof, the car? A Mercedes S500
What a practical car for inspecting road construction where most of the route was gravel deviations. Low profile alloy wheels and all. But back in the bad old days, the poor white sod who was teh gubmint inspector had to make do with a diesel pick up and usually did not even have air con. Hell we call them bakkies which is a derivative of the word bucket. But then, this road they were building, would have been completed in a third of the time. Its been 6 years now and it is still not finished.
So to coin a phase, all the above "your "tax dollars" at work.
I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that if SA had oil reserves here, there would have been zero pressure to change our old ways. But then again, you might have invaded and occupied us too. Perhaps not as we did have some really fancy weaponry back then that we built ourselves.
We do have about 500 years of coal reserves and 90% of what is mined is being exported, you guessed it China and to a lesser extent Europe.
Lastly, b/c the US has disinvested post apartheid but still control a lot of the mineral wealth by proxy, 7Bn is a gesture (read:bribery) to appease the
jobs for mates fellas "in charge" All you need to become a politician in Africa is a criminal record, if you do not have one, they will help you get one rather quickly.