|
Truth To Power (book)
''Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom'' is a 2023 book by ex-Eskom CEO, André de Ruyter. It chronicles his three years at South Africa's state energy provider, Eskom. Fearing political forces might prevent its sale, the book was released ahead of schedule, and without warning, on the 14th of May, 2023. The book details Eskom's systematic downfall through political meddling of the ruling ANC party, to organised syndicates who looted, pillaged and stole from the state utility. The book comes on the heels of a series of explosive television interviews, in which de Ruyter openly accused the ANC of being the cause of almost all the issues at Eskom that were causing the country to suffer significant loadshedding. The book received wide media coverage in the days following its release, with several newspapers publishing extracts online. Eskom power crisis Primarily, the book outlines the systemic and often-politically supported wholesale looting of Eskom, from its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
André De Ruyter
André Marinus de Ruyter (born 1951) is a South African businessman and power executive. He has previously worked at Sasol and Nampak. In December 2019, he was appointed CEO of Eskom, South Africa's publicly owned electricity company. On 14 December 2022, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported that he had stepped down. Early life and education de Ruyter was born in Pretoria in 1971. He has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Pretoria, a Bachelor of Civil Law certificate and Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of South Africa, and a Masters of Business Administration from the Nyenrode Business University. Eskom In December 2019, de Ruyter was appointed CEO of Eskom, South Africa's publicly owned electricity company. According to ''The Citizen'', during his tenure, de Ruyter targeted 'coal theft syndicates', increased levels of maintenance, and oversaw a shift towards renewable power. In December 2022, power cuts reached their severest levels ever. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertelsmann announced the completion of its purchase of Penguin Random House, which had been announced in December 2019, by buying Pearson plc's 25% ownership of the company. With that purchase, Bertelsmann became the sole owner of Penguin Random House. Bertelsmann's German-language publishing group Verlagsgruppe Random House will be completely integrated into Penguin Random House, adding 45 imprints to the company, for a total of 365 imprints. As of 2021, Penguin Random House employed about 10,000 people globally and published 15,000 titles annually under its 250 divisions and imprints. These titles include fiction and nonfiction for adults and children in both print and digital. Penguin Random House comprises Penguin and Random House in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Portuga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eskom
Eskom Hld SOC Ltd or Eskom is a South African electricity public utility. It was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) and was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (EVKOM). Eskom represents South Africa in the Southern African Power Pool. The utility is the largest producer of electricity in Africa, and was among the top utilities in the world in terms of generation capacity and sales, but due to the ANC and incompetence has since slipped in both categories. It is the largest of South Africa's state owned enterprises. Eskom operates a number of notable power stations, including Matimba Power Station and Medupi Power Station in Lephalale, Kusile Power Station in Witbank, Kendal Power Station, and Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in the Western Cape Province, the only nuclear power plant in Africa. The company is divided into Generation, Transmission and Distribution divisions, and together Eskom generates approxima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election installed Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national President, has served as President of the ANC since 18 December 2017. Founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), the organisation was formed to agitate, by moderate methods, for the rights of black South Africans. When the National Party government came to power in 1948, the ANC's central purpose became to oppose the new government's policy of institutionalised apartheid. To this end, its methods and means of organisation shifted; its adoption of the techniques of mass politics, and the swelling of its membership, culminated in the Defiance Campaign of civil disobedience in 1952–53. The ANC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identities because of the consequences of their actions and to avoid invoking legal and organizational requirements for addressing sabotage. Etymology The English word derives from the French word , meaning to "bungle, botch, wreck or sabotage"; it was originally used to refer to labour disputes, in which workers wearing wooden shoes called interrupted production through different means. A popular but incorrect account of the origin of the term's present meaning is the story that poor workers in the Belgian city of Liège would throw a wooden into the machines to disrupt production. One of the first appearances of and in French literature is in the of d'Hautel, edited in 1808. In it the literal definition is to 'make noise with sabots' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South African Energy Crisis
The South African energy crisis is an ongoing period of widespread national blackouts of electricity supply. It began in the later months of 2007 and continues to the present. The South African government-owned national power utility and primary power generator, Eskom, and various parliamentarians attributed these rolling-blackouts to insufficient generation capacity. According to Eskom and government officials, the solution requires the construction of additional power stations and generators. Corruption in South Africa, Corruption and mismanagement of Eskom, most notably during the Jacob Zuma administration, have exacerbated this energy crisis; neglect by Eskom staff in addition to multiple acts of sabotage has also contributed to ongoing power supply problems. Background In a December 1998 report, analysts and leaders in Eskom and in the South African government predicted that Eskom would run out of electrical power reserves by 2007 unless action was taken to prevent it. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The President's Keepers
''The President's Keepers: Those Keeping Zuma in Power and out of Prison'' a 2017 book by Jacques Pauw, a South African investigative journalist, about allegedly corrupt and compromised power networks in the South African government under President Jacob Zuma. Synopsis In eighteen chapters and an epilogue, the book details the creation and functioning of a "shadow mafia state" created by and surrounding President Jacob Zuma. Pauw makes a number of serious allegations about Zuma, including that he did not pay taxes during his presidency, that he was illegally paid R1 million ( $70,000) a month by a private company while president, that he failed to pay back loans, and that he has poor financial acumen. The book also makes a number of accusations concerning criminal and other misconduct by various associates of Zuma. These include that the Gupta family groomed the children of African National Congress (ANC) politicians to gain political influence and that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2023 Non-fiction Books
3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societies. Evolution of the Arabic digit The use of three lines to denote the number 3 occurred in many writing systems, including some (like Roman and Chinese numerals) that are still in use. That was also the original representation of 3 in the Brahmic (Indian) numerical notation, its earliest forms aligned vertically. However, during the Gupta Empire the sign was modified by the addition of a curve on each line. The Nāgarī script rotated the lines clockwise, so they appeared horizontally, and ended each line with a short downward stroke on the right. In cursive script, the three strokes were eventually connected to form a glyph resembling a with an additional stroke at the bottom: ३. The Indian digits spread to the Caliphate in the 9th c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South African Autobiographies
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz'' ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word ''sun'' derived from. Some languages describe south in the same way, from the fact that it is the direction of the sun at noon (in the Northern Hemisphere), like Latin meridies 'noon, south' (from medius 'middle' + dies 'day', cf English meridional), while others describe south as the right-hand side of the rising sun, like Biblical Hebrew תֵּימָן teiman 'south' from יָמִין yamin 'right', Aramaic תַּימנַא taymna from יָמִין yamin 'right' and Syriac ܬܰܝܡܢܳܐ taymna from ܝܰܡܝܺܢܳܐ yamina (hence the name of Yemen, the land to the south/right of the Levant). Navigation By convention, the ''bottom or down-facing side'' of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
