Will South Africa get its act together in time for the 2010 World Cup? There's already been some concern about this. Now RW Johnson weighs in:
On any serious analysis...South Africa's ability to stage the 2010 World Cup was extremely dubious. The key facts were:• The monopoly state electricity supplier, Eskom, predicted with complete accuracy that by the end of 2007 it would not have sufficient power not just to face peak demand but normal base load.
• Already South Africa's reserve electricity supply was down to 8-10% instead of the international benchmark of 15-20%.
• Electricity consumption grows more or less pari passu with economic growth. With the economy growing at around 5% per annum, electricity demand would increase by over 25% by 2010, so that well before the World Cup the country would be utterly incapable of delivering normal services across the board.
• It takes seven to eight years to build a major new power station, so even if emergency construction began in 2005 (and it didn't) there was no hope of changing the situation before 2010.
Now the bell has really tolled and public opinion is aghast at the enormity of this failure of governance - the government had for six years deliberately banned the building of new power stations, even when Eskom begged to be allowed to do so. An immediate result has been a sharp increase in racist sentiment, noticeable in private conversation everywhere. On the one hand there is outrage and contempt for "the incompetence of black government" and on the other, more sadly, a collapse in self-confidence about black government among many Africans who are only too well aware that power failures never happened under apartheid, but are only too typical of independent Africa. [...]
Meanwhile we are told Fifa are "closely monitoring" the situation, but since it is now clear that if the World Cup is held here - and all the stadiums get built on time despite power cuts and all get huge back-up generators - they will still occur in a country where all other services work only spasmodically. Even now one faces, on a daily basis, non-working traffic lights, escalators, lifts, ATMs, shops and garage tills, let alone lights, hot water and cooked meals.
Power demand will grow by at least another 8% by 2010. The World Cup will, remember, be held in the midst of South Africa's winter when night temperatures in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Bloemfontein can all fall to near freezing. But since the government is never going to face reality, this tough question has now landed on Sepp Blatter's plate. He will no doubt wish to raise heaven and earth rather than take the games away from South Africa and face the fury of the Afro-bloc that elected him. But the alternative might, quite possibly, make raising heaven and earth seem a rather bracing option.
He baldly goes where no "useful idiot" has ever gone before, straight into the final frontier.
Posted by: Noga | February 07, 2008 at 07:07 PM
Let's decide not to hold a World Cup at all in 2012, to mark our concern for Global Warming, Aids and Tuna-friendly Dolphins.
Posted by: dearieme | February 07, 2008 at 08:59 PM
Sorry. Wrong number. My comment here was of course meant for the Archbiship.
Posted by: Noga | February 07, 2008 at 10:27 PM
ArchbishOp!
Posted by: Noga | February 07, 2008 at 10:28 PM