Today, March 1, energy company Eskom celebrates its 100th birthday.
But there is not much left to celebrate for what was once the world's best power utility. South Africa is currently suffering an electricity crisis.
Blackouts have been widespread and the impact disastrous. Power outages have plunged millions of South African homes into darkness, and disrupted the economic growth recovery from the residue left by Covid-19.
Although Eskom has just announced that load shedding stages will alternate rotationally between Stage 4 and stage 5 from Wednesday, South Africans have been doing what they do best - find the humour in literally any situation, no matter how serious.
As the power utility turned 100 years old today, non-profit organisation OUTA (Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse) took to its Twitter page to wish the company a humorous ‘Happy Birthday’ with an unfinished liquidy cake. Why the ‘liquid’ cake? Because there has been no electricity to bake it. That’s where the joke was at.
“#Eskom is 100 years old today. We wanted to do something special, so for all those who brought this once proud entity to its knees, here's a cake.
(Jokes aside: we realise there are some good people in Eskom still trying to keep the lights on. We thank them for their efforts.)”, they wrote in the caption.
#Eskom is 100 years old today. We wanted to do something special, so for all those who brought this once proud entity to its knees, here's a cake.
(Jokes aside: we realise there are some good people in Eskom still trying to keep the lights on. We thank them for their efforts.) pic.twitter.com/r6nXz2eMtU
Tweeps reacted with gifs, memes, and hilarious replies of their own.
One user wrote: “You guys are so rude (laughing face emoji)” to which OUTA responded: “No, we're not. We are considerate people.
“We could have let this milestone birthday go by without any comment. At least we TRIED to bake a cake.”
A second user wrote: “They can drink the cake. Good work!!”
A third commented: “You are still lucky enough to get the ingredients because many factories, as well as the transport, also came to a standstill.”