I wonder How many South Africans.....

[Michael Alexander]

I wonder how many South Africans emigrated to NZ because of the power cuts in ZA last year?

" Power cuts: Get ready for more



   

Power crisis?

   


Aucklanders should brace themselves for more rolling power cuts despite two days of disruption that have left business owners and residents furious and demanding answers.

The problem is the creaky state of the electricity grid - parts of which are 70 years old - which has suffered from years of underinvestment.

But Prime Minister John Key yesterday committed the Government to move fast to help fix the city's vulnerable power supply infrastructure.

"We've made it quite clear we'll spend what looks like tens of millions of dollars to upgrade that equipment immediately," he said.

An upgrade cannot come quickly enough for businesses and homes in affected areas.

Network company Vector cut power in St Heliers and parts of surrounding eastern suburbs about 12 noon yesterday. The deliberate cut was made at the request of Transpower, which hoped to reduce pressure on its Penrose substation. The substation's capacity has been heavily reduced after a transformer failed on Tuesday, leaving only a single transformer to carry the load.

And when that started to peak close to lunchtime, the result was a loss of power to about 7500 homes and businesses.

Vector warned yesterday that more "rolling outages" could be needed today if Transpower's transformer in Penrose wasn't back in service.

Transpower chief executive Patrick Strange last night apologised to those who had been affected.

"The first thing to say is that whatever the faults with the system, our job is to keep the lights on and we failed to do that. We apologise to all the customers. We know the impact and we're doing everything we can to keep them on and to limit any further outages."

The focus was now on getting the second transformer back, and until then he was unable to guarantee the system was secure.

Last year, Transpower embarked on a 20-year transformer replacement programme and ordered spare transformers for emergencies, but they will not be delivered until towards the end of next year at the earliest.

The power cuts have irritated Auckland Mayor John Banks, who called for Dr Strange to donate a week's salary to the Auckland City Mission as a peace offering to the city.

The highest-salaried Transpower staff member - likely to be Dr Strange - last year was paid $880,000.

"I'm an Aucklander. All my focus is getting this back on ... What I do with my private life should remain private," Dr Strange said.

He said he knew people were frustrated but all Transpower could do was be totally honest about what it was doing and to make sure it didn't happen again.

Transpower setbacks weren't just restricted to the Penrose substation.

A cable that fed one of the two transformers at the Otahuhu substation - the site of the infamous 2006 power failure - also failed yesterday. Dr Strange said that while it would draw resources because it would need to be fixed, it wasn't expected to cause problems.

"That's business as usual, it's well within its load ... It happens from time to time but we're working hard to get it fixed," he said.

However, businesses and schools in St Heliers were annoyed by the cuts. Lawyer Tony Ivanson said his firm had suffered.

"I am trying to run a professional practice from the St Heliers village. Today the power was cut at 11.45 and restored 20 minutes later. Vector fails to realise the disruption they cause when they flick the switch and give no information when service will be restored."

It was back to basics at St Heliers School, where a teacher had to walk around class with a hand-held bell.

DECADE OF DISRUPTION

1998: Mercury Energy's underground cables feeding Auckland's central business district fail. Five weeks of blackouts and disruption follow.

2006: Cable failure at Transpower's Otahuhu substation. Much of Auckland without power for five hours.

2007: Half of Transpower's interisland link closed for safety reasons. Patch-up job done but constraints remain on shifting power between the islands."

[SandyB]

Mmm and we thought we had  3rd world problems ,,, seems the folly of  "avarice"  has crept  in everywhere .. the chase after big profit and bonus for the  bigwigs  after declaring  these wonderful profits ??   seems this illness of shortsighted thinking   pervades  on our  crumbling planet ?? where are the morals ,, where is the ethic of " I have a responsibility and am here to serve  and serve well , and if  I do so  well then I will get  what I rightly deserve " ??  How many CEO's  just  get the " golden handshake " to see them off and spare whichever corporate the embarresment ???  Uuugh !!

[Michael Alexander]

Unless.... the South africans who emigrated 20 years ago, are now running NZ's power grid.....   

[SandyB]

We would like to  jokingly think that Mike ,, but yes i believe my words are true ,,, look at the  economic  meltdown ,, all spurred on by greed .. be it the  bankers , the  stockbrokers ,  the  corporate CEO's ,,  the greedy politicians looking  for somebody's pocket to be in ..  and of course the consumer spurring it all on  ,,  its all form   of greed , bigger better .. I  got more than you .. compared to  what I remember  my folks did ,, they just gave us the best they could at the moment  and told us to  be appreciative as there were so many who were less fortunate .. again  the credo of  if you work well and give your best you will get  what is  deserved ... I think the word ACCOUNTABILITY  has just slipped of the face of this planet .. I saw our dishonourable JZ on the box at 7 pm news ...  spouting  his  verbal excretement .. he  just somehow cannot  seem to understand the concept of him being in a corrupt  scenario ...

[Florrie van Zyl (Muir)]

Received this e-mail that says it all:
This is why the USA will continue to be the strongest nations on the face of the earth...
Will South Africa ever come close????????????
...I rest my case!!!

[Diana Rudd (Boehme)]

    I just have to.

[SandyB]

ISNT  HE  JUST  SUCH A F...G    CLOWN  ??  JA  I SUPPOSE   ALL ONE  SHOULD  DO IS LAUGH ..   AFTER  ALL OUR  POLITICAL SCENARIO IS A CIRCUS , SO YES HE JUST ONE OF THE CLOWNS , PROBLEM IS  I DONT LIKE  CIRCUS ,, CIRCUS IS FOR  CHILDREN ,, Mmm  THAT BRINGS  HIS ENFANT TERRIBLE  MOUTHPIECE  TO THE  FORE   JULIUS MALEMA .. HE MUST BE PROUD OF HIS DADDY BEING A CIRCUS CLOWN ??

[Michael Alexander]

They are both the same, politicians is what they are.... all they are doing, is dancing to the tune of the majority that keeps them in office.....

If Zuma acted like Obama, the ANC masses would not vote him in...

If Obama acted Like Zuma, the American electorate would not have voted him in...

just my 2 cents...

[Bob Molloy]

Hi Michael,
               Your funpoking at Kiwi cluelessness and comparison to the current setup at Escom is well taken. But perhaps two points if I could add my tuppence worth:

a) Until the late 1980s, New Zealanders had the world's best power system, generating inexpensive energy from geothermal, hydro and coal-fired stations connected nationwide by a superb grid system. It was part of a network of similarly effective infrastructure owned by the state and run without profit motive.
So what happened?

The free market is what happened. That and a rightwing government which despite the good sense of most Kiwis was voted in from sheer weariness with the other lot.
The first "reform" was to sell off the family silver: power, water, railways, telephones etc. Lurking fat cats from around the world - with no interest whatsoever in New Zealand other than the smell of a quick dollar - leaped in with squeals of joy and bought up cheap. The theory was that the free market can run any business better than any government. 
What the free market did - and as anyone with half a brain could have told them - was ignore essential forward planning and maintenance, wring out every cent of profit, asset strip and then flog off the remnants to some other lurking fat cat. Don't get upset about this. It's what free markets do, they are the playground of fat cats and a rough playground it is. It has no morals, no social conscience and no concept of social value. In the process the electricity system was split into bits and pieces, each competing and sometime actively hindering the other, the cost of power skyrocketed and the rest was history. Ditto the railways (most of our most famous rail routes closed within a few years, the rest became an embarassment and everybody switched to roads), telephones, the postal system, water et al.
Eventually the average Kiwi, who would rather go fishing than into a polling booth, woke up enough to re-elect a Labour government which spent the next nine years painfully and expensively buying back the wreckage. It is coming right, Auckland power setup is getting kicked into shape, but sadly the ingrained Kiwi habit of getting tired of the same old political faces has again voted in a right wing bunch. The hope is that perhaps this crew will feel somewhat chastened by the worldwide failure of the free market system and perhaps be less gung ho.
Hmmm, hope that doesn't sound too much like a rant.

To your next question: how many South Africans in New Zealand does it take to change a light bulb?

First, a look at the figures. According to the Great Trek website Auckland is the destination of choice for the majority of Southern Africans and a large number of these are Afrikaans.

"Most of the Afrikaans speakers live in Auckland, the largest city in the country with over 1 million people (the total NZ population has just reached 4 million). And many of these are centralized in suburbs such as Browns Bay on the North Shore of the city (sometimes referred to by South Africans as Bruins Drift!) and Howick (or Jaapwik), on the eastern side of the city. In both centres there are regular Afrikaans church services and language instruction groups, and a local North Shore library has agreed to establish an Afrikaans bookshelf and to host Afrikaans story-telling sessions for toddlers.

In Auckland there are also a number of South African shops where you can get anything from home-made biltong, boerewors, melktert and koeksisters, to rooibos tea, Tassies, Rennies, and the obligatory Mrs Balls chutney. Most of these are now readily available in supermarkets as well." - Gary Barkhuizen - Source

Apparently in 2000, nearly two thirds of the NZ South African population lived in Auckland and in 2003, it was estimated there were 20,000 in the North Shore area alone.

According to the 2001 census - of all immigrant groups, South African males had the highest median incomes, and females the second highest.

Many South Africans use New Zealand as the stepping stone to Australia, as the NZ visa and immigration laws are said to be "easier" to conquer than the Australian, because of the skills shortage and smaller available workforce in New Zealand.

The New Zealand census figures listed here show the number of residents born in South Africa

1901 census: 474
1951 census: 1,398
1976 census: 3,840
2001 census: 26,061
2006 census: 41,676

And to indicate the level of South Africa's loss here: back in '85 just after arrival I was asked by UCT to set up an alumni association to help the unversity keep track of graduates. At our first reunion I looked around the tables and noticed how many high flyers there were, top people in the iron and steel industry, breweries, big box retail, medicine, railways, energy, communications etc. It occurred to me that if this lot were wiped out by an earthquake the country would come to a halt. This was followed by the thought that if they were so important to NZ what was happening to South Africa, it must be bleeding at every pore.
For the first time I realised just how dire was the South African diaspora. That was more than 20 years ago. The figures above show the trend continues.

Regards,
Bob.

[Michael Alexander]

Bob, when you moved to NZ,had you considered other countries also?

[SandyB]

Tuppence well  put  ..  in the case of  NZ  it was  the  free market system  ,short sighted thinking and the chase   for profits and bonus  causing the  infrastructure  collapse ..

In SA  it  was  mismanagement by political appointees  of the  parastatal , their  shortsightedness , their greed , their quest for fat bonus that caused our infrastructure  downfall ..
So  are both systems  then  wrong ??  where is the right system ??

And yes we here in SA have been  at times severely  inconvenienced by  the  power problems ...  losses to   business have been  huge ... but yes we are resilient  and  many  now see  it as  oppotunity   for how can I save , what difference can I make ?? a kind  of wake up call   ..  and yes we will  throw  jokes and laugh  about  these  crisis  and  the opportunities  they  open  ..

[Bob Molloy]

Hi Mike,
          To answer your query as to how many countries we'd considered before joining the chicken run (so ably trail-blazed before us by such imminent figures as Jan van Riebeeck and Paul Kruger). The short answer is heaps, over a five year period, all requiring a visit and a good nosy around.
They included the UK, Ireland, Canada, Israel, parts of Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The reality is that we didn't really want to move, were happy in our little paradise on Hout Bay beach (now turned into a restaurant called the Dunes) saw nothing - until we reached New Zealand - that remotely equalled it, and couldn't face the loss of friends and separation from relatives. The only outcome could be tears and, for some years, so it proved.
Regards,
Bob.