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I HAVE always considered myself to be a very positive and optimistic person. But after watching last week's episodes of Carte Blanche and 3rd Degree, I find it very hard to see our country for its sunny disposition - no thanks to Eskom and our government.

For those of you who were fortunate enough to be kept in the dark, both Carte Blanche and 3rd Degree painted a very gruelling picture of where exactly Eskom and our government has led us into in the 21st century.

Not only are we likely to experience years of power outages, rolling blackouts and continuous load shedding, but if our government has anything to say about it, we, the people, will certainly pay the price for it.

If Eskom's 2006-2007 net profit of R3,4 billion is anything to go by, it becomes evident where exactly the interests of our country's geniuses and fat cats lie - in their ever-increasing bank accounts. What else could explain Eskom's R57 million in bonuses last year?

Surely not their performance, because had their bonuses depended on their performance, I sincerely doubt South Africa would be facing the present national energy crisis. A crisis that is not only going to leave us in the dark for many more years to come, but a crisis that could call for a state of emergency.

We are only three weeks into the power outages and already the country has lost millions, if not billions, of rands.

Businesses are suffering, criminals are smiling, jobs are at risk, and the economy is plunging deeper and deeper into the ground. And while we do appreciate the honesty of Eskom's Finance Director, Bongani Nqwababa, publicly asking government to ward off local and international investors until 2013 because of Eskom's inability to guarantee adequate power supply, it certainly does not help the cause.

So what do we do about it? According to the government and Eskom, turning off of geezers and buying fluorescent light bulbs should do the trick. But, personally, I think a tad more drastic measures are called for.

First on this list should be the supply of electricity to only South Africa. With a limited supply of power in our country, supplying electricity to our neighbouring states should be the least of our concerns.

In future, bonuses of Eskom employees should be based on how well they perform their job: supplying South Africa with sufficient electricity. That includes a percentage of Eskom's profits to be ploughed back into Eskom's infrastructure and maintenance, and not into their ever-so-deep pockets - particularly while the country faces its worse power crisis yet.

Finally, with Eskom having only recently admitting that it suffers from a serious skills shortage since almost half the workforce dissolved over the last 15 years, we can only hope that the right man or woman is picked for the job. Because, if it is in fact true that a letter, dated 16 January this year, from Eskom's HR Department states "no white male appointments for the rest of the financial year", ultimately we have bigger fish to fry.

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