Height of the ridiculous

With all the bucks on the sticky fingers of officialdom, the state electricity company can’t buy extra cable and spare parts. Now they are begging for loans from Joe Public, the consumer.

Due to the shortages of stock they have launched what they call a Customer Supply Scheme that they say is a voluntary programme for customers with spare funds to replace ‘vandalised infrastructure’ and provide help in repairing faults all over the grid.

These loans will be paid back through credits on electricity bills. Volunteers mustn’t buy any old rubbish but get the proper technical specs needed from area managers.

One whole district was plunged into darkness for three weeks because new cable binders and small items like this (left) were not in the supply store. Later, technicians had to be brought to the site in a private car because their own truck was broken down and another had no fuel.

More often than not, police also have no transport and ask to be collected and taken to a crime scene.

Solar-charged batteries are the way to go but they are out of the reach of most people. Small portable devices left out in the sun are one answer but a watchful eye must be kept on them in case they disappear in the prevailing kleptocracy.

Mind-blowing to us, foreign news clips show cyclones, hurricanes and ever more frequent climate calamities ripping off rooftops and blowing down trees and power lines, leaving outages for mere hours or day or two.

The rainy season has arrived here and daylight can be completely overcast. Only the most expensive solar gear can cope.

There was a time not long ago at this time of year when clear skies followed sudden downpours that brought that heavenly smell of the freshly moistened earth. The sunshine soon burnt off the fresh, rising steam. And Trump says climate change is a hoax.

Today the rains flood long-neglected drains and sewers turning streets into rivers, deepening potholes and worsening already chaotic road traffic that competes with Cairo, Lagos, Nairobi and the worst of them.

Webster’s dictionary: Ridiculous = arousing or deserving ridicule, extremely silly or unreasonable, absurd, preposterous. Height = a measure from head to toe, or a distance above the surface of the earth.

Trivia fact from to Mr Webster:  In olden days it was heighth, like width, breadth and length.

P.S. There I was, quietly observing the rules of the road, when a battered, mud-splattered fully-laden minibus taxi zoomed past me at high speed in the wrong lane. To avoid the carnage of a collision I missed a stop line on the road. Cops around the corner waved me down. US$30 spot fine. But hey, what about the other guy driving the kombi?

At least I got a receipt this time and wasn’t solicited for a bribe.