Yes! We have no safety problems - Not!

From the Mercury today...

SOUTH AFRICA
Power crisis twist
Sabotage, staff cuts revelation
March 2, 2006
By Melanie Gosling & Angela Quintal

Cape Town: The government will announce tomorrow how it plans to deal with the power crisis that has resulted in rolling blackouts across the Western Cape over the past two weeks.

...which was caused in part by

One of the Koeberg nuclear reactors is out of action indefinitely, apparently as a result of sabotage, and the other is due to be shut down this month for refuelling.

...now that is heart warming news (all the way down to the core)

Minerals and Energy Minister Lindiwe Hendricks said in reply to a parliamentary question that over the past two years, eight out of 60 senior professional engineers had left Koeberg, seven out of 46 technical managers and five of 30 non-technical managers. Hendricks said eight out of the 60 professional engineering posts were being filled "through the development of junior professional engineers".

...now I understand where the sabotage part comes into play - plain 'ole stupidity!

...and then the clincher of putting foot in mouth and chewing on it

"Once they have met the criteria, they will be eligible for promotion into these positions. Technically these positions can therefore not be considered vacant as there are already professional engineers being developed to assume the posts," she said.

...Hmmm. Not vacant? I wonder if these are possibly critical positions. Lets see!

They included the posts of senior engineer (accident analyst), nuclear engineering; senior engineer (adviser), integrated safety evaluation group; senior engineer (steam generator), nuclear engineering; and senior engineer (mechanical specifications), nuclear engineering.

...Aahhh!!! The light flickers - nothing really serious like an accident analyst, a safety evaluation engineer, a specifications engineer or heaven forbid a steam generator senior engineer who just might know soemthing about generating electricity from a turbine. They've really got it under control as there are no "vacant" postions and when the trainees are good enough to be let loose on a nuclear reactor it will be fun to see if the minister will personally do the certification of their abilities.

Hendricks said nuclear safety and operations had not been compromised by the loss of staff.

...Nope and there aren't any power cuts either. After all the following doesn't appear to have any real affect, has it?

The city council's electricity interruption planning committee had to cancel its emergency meetings planned for this week - because of power cuts. The committee was to present plans from each sector for risk reduction and mitigation measures in the blackouts.

Hellloooo - anybody out there?