It was Richard Branson who pointed out that: “To stand still today is to go backwards… and quickly.” That is the state in which South Africa finds itself today. Going backwards. Really fast.

Last week two of the country’s most strategic assets, and perfect monopolies at that, Eskom and ArcelorMittal, told the market they have gone backwards. By a whole decade in each case. And along with them, they have dragged the whole country backwards. For without electricity, there can be no business activity. Without steel, there can be no infrastructure development.

First, it was Eskom on Tuesday, with Caleb Cassim, the chief financial officer, revealing that Eskom had produced 208,000 GigaWatt hours (GWh) of electricity in the 12 months ended March 2019. Not only has Eskom’s output of energy been declining every year for at least the past five years, but the 208,000 GWh of power it produced is also exactly the same as Eskom generated in the year ended March 2006.

Of course, back then the utility was not only profitable, but it was also more efficient and was highly regarded by the major credit rating agencies, which conferred on it A-grade credit status. Eskom engineers were highly sought after the world over by other electricity producers. Certainly, Eskom was sustainable, with real cash in the bank and negligible debt. The R4.6-billion net profit came off revenue of R36-billion.

Most importantly, Eskom charged its customers 17.01 cents per kilowatt-hour. This was a time when it was regarded by global peers as being among the best and was in the top four of the world’s producers of reliable and cheap electricity.

How times change!

Back then, Eskom was on the way up. Miners and other intensive energy users consumed a lot of electricity to produce commodities that were in demand elsewhere and here at home. Steel was key among those.

Not so today.

You are now paying 90 cents for that kilowatt-hour.

Yet today’s Eskom is the equivalent of a debt nuclear bomb waiting to annihilate the South African economy. The massive R441-billion outstanding debt is a massive step backwards. And the economy cannot afford the R69-billion that is needed to service it and repay maturing bonds. This came off R187-billion revenue. Yes, that’s R187,000,000,000.

How one goes to work, generate R187,000,000,000 revenue, and then lose it all, plus another R20,000,000,000 is beyond me. This should be a matter of some intensive research.

Again, how Eskom got itself here is a matter of historical record, a story well recorded by South African media. The government of the day and the governing party have a lot to answer for in this sorry state of affairs.

What has not been as eloquently recorded by analysts, the media and other commentators is how this shameful state of affairs at Eskom has dragged the rest of the economy into the doldrums. Which brings us to ArcelorMittal.

Itself a near-perfect monopoly, ArcelorMittal announced last week that demand had fallen back to 2008 levels. In a nutshell, that means ArcelorMittal has had to cope with the production volumes of a decade ago. At the interim financial reporting period in June 2009, ArcelorMittal said it had shipped 2,068 kilotonnes of steel products, mainly to within South Africa, and some to the rest of Africa and even to Asia.

Again, South Africa was on the way up, back then. The soccer World Cup was a year away. We spent billions in infrastructure to ensure South Africa could put on a great display hosting the showpiece. Steel was, and still is, a key ingredient in any infrastructure development. ArcelorMittal was also on the way up. Not so today. Though unknown to us, we had just begun our descent.

There was at least a deadline to invest in infrastructure. There was urgency, common purpose and leadership. And that is the difference with today’s South Africa.

We are now drifting along aimlessly, with the government hobbled while its leaders are held hostage by the looting agenda of some of their own.

Instead of implementing much-needed reforms and investment programmes, the government of Cyril Ramaphosa spends its time trying to find ways to outwit a determined and well organised internal ANC opposition that will stop at nothing to snatch political power.

Instead of creating an enabling environment for business to thrive and hire more people and pay more salaries and taxes, the government has been having to look inward and close loops for the opportunists within the ANC.

This is a vicious fight for survival. Key members of the radical economic transformation element within the ANC are fighting to stay out of jail. Resurgent law enforcement agencies are readying themselves to punish the crimes of our most recent years. These combatants will not go down without a fight.

Hence the whole economy has been held to ransom. And the rating agencies will soon visit upon us their costly, but necessary judgment with a credit downgrade to junk status. We cannot go on like this. BM