When you start seeing memos heavily-laced with words like ‘load management’, just know that we are treading into that treacherous path of load shedding. Semantics and such smart, almost-deceptive words are usually used by cunning PR teams to salve ineptitude wounds.
Many times the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) has used the infamous phrase: ‘We’ve got this!’ especially when we dared to question their competence to consistently supply us with power. Only later did they admit ‘maybe we don’t’.
The announcement made a while ago that we will be exporting electricity to South Africa was met with both trepidation and excitement at the same time. Trepidation because many times we have been told things have normalised at the power plant only for something to melt at Morupule B and plunge the country into darkness. Excitement because if we will be exporting to South Africa then that means there will be enough to go round locally, right? Wrong, we now seem to be back to square zero somewhat.
There’s political posturing and I am sure there could well be power utility posturing. Ideas are only good if they actually work. I’d put this into the same category as do-it-yourself braces for your teeth. There was a music festival that involved local artist Charma Gal and a Rhumba artist Koffie Olomide from the land of Rhumba, DRC, in the previous week.
Some are of the opinion that a lot of electricity was used up then. From the Unreliable Facts mill, Rhumba music needs a lot of electricity. Olomide’s dancers gyrate like they are plugged to a power source. Throw in Charma Gal and you surely have a recipe for more power consumption. So a lot of unenlightened (pun intended) people are now blaming the music show for their woes. It is grossly unfair. The person who has the power – both literally and metaphorically – is the switchman and that is the person we should blame.
He can decide which side of the city to plunge into darkness. As the electricity supply plummets, it might just be a great idea to befriend the switchman. That is, if you can establish who he really is. Ladies, doesn’t this strike you as gender-based idiocy though? As a male, speaking on behalf of my gender, I will admit it. We sometimes (Ok, frequently) think it is always a man who is in charge of such important responsibilities. This type of thinking has the Gender Equality train chugging at full steam and has no place in 21st century thinking.
I am sorry. It might be the patriarchy molecules in my system. My type needs a gender-equality serum shot – a huge dose at that. But it looks like things are improving. This time we were at least given due warning of a looming load shedding exercise. Of course it was not called that but at least we were given ample time to Google the solar contraptions prices and complain about their steepness.
This is the usual course of action when there’s load shedding. We search for solar alternatives, worry about their prices and forget about them as soon as the electricity comes back. The average citizen has done this countless times during load shedding - sorry load management. This has kept the companies that supply solar equipment busy with making quotations that never really turn into sales.
I am sure these companies hate load shedding more than the average electricity consumer. Things are improving on the communications front though. There was a time when load shedding just happened. Some brutal power consumers even said then BPC was a teenager. Science reveals that teenagers don’t have (yet) a fully developed pre-frontal cortex in their brains.
That simply means they often have an inability to fully judge the gravity inherent in a situation. I thought that was very unfair. To teenagers! (For comments, feedback and insults email [email protected]) Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email [email protected].
