Eskom under state capture
South Africa's state electricity utility became a central target of state capture when political influence, board appointments, executive removals, and procurement were organized to benefit connected private networks. Coal, consulting, and capital-project transactions extracted money and damaged professional correction while older planning failures, an aging fleet, design defects, municipal debt, and maintenance breakdowns also drove the electricity crisis. The resulting load shedding transferred capture's costs into clinics, small businesses, households, workers, public budgets, and a dirtier, more unequal energy transition.
How does a technically capable public utility become an extraction system when appointment, information, and procurement authority are captured—and how can it recover without hiding the people who paid the cost?