By Alec Hogg
I’m writing from my hotel room in Durban where the first leg of the post-Davos presentations is over. I love The Durban Hilton, mostly because it’s so quiet. Except this time the normal peace is broken by the thumping of an electricity generator. Earlier my wife told it me it sounds like our suburb (Houghton in Johannesburg) is about to lift off. Two of the neighbours had been running their generators for a couple hours.
Welcome to a new, noisy South Africa. As Eskom accelerates its load shedding programme, better resourced citizens are becoming self-sufficient. The initial load shedding burst was met by candles. Now that the nation believes blackouts are a part of our future, those with the means are switching on their own irritatingly loud, diesel belching power suppliers. Which raises the next obvious question – what about the noise pollution laws?
