Last week marked the final deadline for South Africans to switch over to a new electricity meter recharging system. This upgrade was necessary because the software in the old prepaid meters, which have been in use for nearly 30 years, had reached the end of its lifespan.
The deadline, Sunday, November 24, 2024, signalled the point at which old prepaid meters would stop working. Once existing credit runs out, these meters can no longer accept new tokens, effectively rendering them useless. This is due to the expiry of vending codes tied to the older STS (Standard Transfer Specification) technology.
While Eskom and municipalities had ample time to prepare for the transition, their efforts to inform the public were inadequate. Eskom’s awareness campaign lacked the visibility and grassroots education needed to ensure users understood the changes and their implications. While some communication was sent out, it came too late to be truly effective.
The programme itself was designed as a DIY process for customers. Eskom assured users that recoding their prepaid meters involved just three simple steps. However, the chaos witnessed across South Africa over the weekend, including a tragic incident that resulted in a death, underscored the failures of this approach. Poor communication and lack of support left many consumers struggling to adapt to the new system.
Why was there such a crisis in the first place, especially when all of this could have been resolved without the stress or national trauma leading up to the November 24 (Sunday) meter cut-off deadline?
The root of the problem is that we are led by individuals who lack an understanding of professionalism and the importance of delivering the highest standards of service. Our leaders approach the critical issues facing our society with alarming casualness, as though nothing truly matters. It's as if they are strolling through a chaotic neighbourhood, indifferent to the turmoil around them.
Even in moments of self-inflicted crisis, they remain relaxed. Was it necessary for anyone to lose their life while waiting in line to restore their electricity meter? Such a tragedy is unheard of in any civilized country. In a well-governed nation, the death of an innocent person, forced to endure hours in a queue, would have sparked outrage and led to swift accountability. Heads should roll.
But alas, as the saying goes, TIA—This is Africa. Who cares about the lives of poor township residents, long forgotten by a state that should have been serving them in the first place?
What doesn’t make sense to me is why South Africa is always operating in crisis mode. The migration from an old legacy voucher electricity system to a new software platform should never have been this chaotic or mismanaged.
Transitioning an electricity system should not escalate to the point of a national crisis. A switch in electricity metering voucher management should not become the centrepiece of a national catastrophe.
As a nation, we have far more productive ways to spend our time than lurching from one crisis to the next.
I learned harsh lessons on leadership when I was younger, lessons I still value today. I spent my primary school years at St. Brendan's Catholic boarding school in Bandelierkop, Limpopo, near the Vhembe region.
As a young boy thrown into a strict Catholic boarding system, I quickly discovered the importance of discipline and time management. Life in the dormitories was run like clockwork, with every moment of the day tightly scheduled. Falling behind meant enduring the humiliation of disciplinary measures, sometimes involving corporal punishment, to ensure adherence to the system.
Our day started abruptly with the piercing sound of a whistle from the boarding school master. This signalled the race to the showers, where being early meant a warm shower, while the latecomers braved the cold. By 6 am, beds were made, uniforms donned, and students ready for the day’s tightly packed routine of meals, classes, and recreational breaks. Everything operated on a strict timetable. Evenings followed a similar structure, with dinner, leisure and lights out at 9 pm when the generator stopped, plunging the campus into silence. Despite the monotony, this disciplined routine instilled in us a deep respect for order and the value of using time wisely.
These lessons in self-management and prioritisation shaped my outlook on life and leadership. That’s why I remain astonished at the lack of discipline and planning among our country’s leaders. Watching them mismanage crises, squander time and fail to prioritise critical issues feels like a betrayal of everything I was taught. Leadership at the highest levels demands the same values I learned in boarding school: discipline, routine and respect for the responsibilities entrusted to you.
There’s something deeply amiss. We seem trapped in an endless cycle of crises, and the prepaid electricity meter switchover was yet another self-inflicted disaster born of mismanagement and neglect. This project should have started long ago, with a clear, detailed plan and robust support systems in place—call centres, walk-in community hubs, and remote assistance. Instead, we woke up a few months before the switchover to a haphazard approach, with the old system abruptly switched off.
Proper project management requires meticulous planning. You plan, scope and execute on military precision style. What we witnessed over the past two weeks was anything but that and highly disappointing. This poorly planned and executed software migration has exposed the glaring inadequacies in leadership and governance. Our leaders must be held accountable for their inability to administer the state effectively. The endless meetings they hold rarely result in actionable solutions, leaving the country to bear the brunt of their failures.
South Africa cannot continue lurching from one crisis to the next—electricity, water, sanitation, crime, potholes, and now the illegal mining (zama zama) emergency. A fish rots from the head, and it’s time for state officials to embrace a culture of accountability and consequence management. South Africa is a beautiful nation, but it’s being torn apart by perpetual crisis. This madness must end.
BUSINESS REPORT