André de Ruyter, former head of Eskom. (Graphics: Rhewal)
Power of attorney, corruption and corporate decay in Eskom are in the news and South Africans’ lights don’t burn for six to eight hours of the day.
It’s chilling to think that winter is coming. Frustration levels are high. A sense of powerlessness threatens to paralyze South Africa as a society.
On Sunday 2 April Revealed: Power giant on his knees broadcast on kykNET. This news documentary examines Eskom as a company and examines the reasons for and manner in which it fell into disrepair.
All these aspects – corruption, load shedding, corporate decay and the like – are discussed from the perspective of how they affect citizens. This Reveal-episode attempts to explain to viewers what exactly is going on, what the future is likely to look like and why things are as they are currently the case.
When Eskom’s former CEO, André de Ruyter, in a detailed interview on 21 February this year eTV making several shocking statements and revelations, it had the country in turmoil.
South Africans were suddenly no longer just at the mercy of the impact of load shedding, but became aware of the extent of the problems at this giant semi-state enterprise.
In Revealed: Power giant on his knees the origins and consequences of the loadshedding crisis are discussed with representatives of Solidarity and Cosatu. Citizens want to know how long load-shedding will continue, how they can steel themselves against it, what the causes are and what possible solutions might be.
These questions are answered from a practical but also political-historical perspective through interviews with, among others, Connie Mulder and Dr. Dirk Hermann from Solidarity, and Willem Els from the Institute for Security Studies.
Eskom employees are also spoken to, from ground level to the head of the Kendal power station and also Jan Oberholzer, Eskom’s chief operating officer, to get an idea of what is going on inside the company.
It tells how it feels to be criticized by the public as incompetent, and what it takes from employees to fulfill their mandate under almost impossible circumstances.
(Photo: AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA)
Against the background of the 2024 elections, as well as the political landscape within which large-scale corruption and sabotage are apparently rampant, journalists and political analysts such as Kyle Cowan and Antoinette Slabbert are consulted to make sense of the allegations of criminal activity in and around Eskom, as well as the allegations that crime cartels in Mpumalanga are at the helm of affairs.
Revealed: Power giant on his knees forms part of a series of investigative news documentaries under the banner Reveal which by IdeaCandy, makers of the Showmax hits Devilsdorp in Stella Murdersbe made.
In July last year, the first news documentary in the Reveal-reeks, Disclosure: My father did not rape mebroadcast on kykNET.
This hour-long documentary investigated how it happened that Abrie Raaths was found guilty on four charges of rape and two of sexual assault of his daughter, Megan Raaths.
In February 2023, the second news documentary in the Reveal-reeks, Revealed: Villain or Samaritan?focused on the controversial businessman Louis Liebenberg and his shady business dealings, aired.
Revealed: Power giant on his knees will be broadcast on Sunday 2 April at 20:00 on kykNET (DStv channel 144). This, as well as the other news documentaries in the Reveal series, will be available on Catch Up.
Look here after the preview.
