In a world where the bar for human expectation is buried somewhere in the Marianas Trench, South Africa’s state-owned power utility, Eskom, has managed to trip over it once again. The latest dispatch from the frontlines of institutional decay involves a viral ‘scam’—the digital equivalent of a bottom-feeder—promising 60,000 learnerships to the country’s youth for the year 2026. Eskom, with the frantic energy of a man trying to explain that his house isn’t actually on fire while the roof collapses into his cereal, has rushed to the podium to announce that this is, indeed, a lie. Of course it is a lie. The idea of Eskom hiring 60,000 people to learn anything other than the complex art of sitting in a dark room and contemplating the heat death of the universe is the most transparently fraudulent concept since the invention of the 'Just Transition.'

Let’s dwell on the mathematics of this absurdity for a moment. Sixty thousand learnerships. For context, Eskom can barely keep sixty lightbulbs flickering simultaneously in a single Pretoria suburb without the entire grid throwing a collective tantrum. To suggest that a utility currently drowning in billions of rands of debt, riddled with more holes than a block of Swiss cheese in a shooting gallery, and presided over by a rotating door of bureaucrats whose primary skill is looking confused in expensive suits, could suddenly train a small army of technicians is peak comedy. The scammers, whoever these enterprising vultures are, have a far better grasp of South African desperation than the government itself. They understand that in a nation where youth unemployment is less of a statistic and more of a national hobby, hope is the only commodity that hasn't been subjected to a stage 6 rolling blackout.

Eskom’s official warning against this scam is a masterclass in unintentional irony. They are deeply concerned that the public might be misled. Imagine that. A company that has spent the better part of two decades misleading an entire nation about its ability to generate electricity is now worried about the integrity of its digital footprint. They want you to know that there are no jobs. There is no training. There is no future in 2026 that involves Eskom holding your hand as you enter the workforce. It is perhaps the most honest the utility has been in its entire existence. 'We aren't helping you' is the one corporate slogan they can actually deliver on with 100% reliability.

The cruelty of the scam is, naturally, secondary to the systemic failure that allowed it to flourish. When the state provides nothing but darkness and excuses, the vacuum is filled by digital grifters who realize that the promise of a paycheck is the most potent drug on the market. The Left will cry about the exploitation of the working class by nameless cyber-criminals, ignoring the fact that the state itself has been the primary exploiter for a generation. The Right will point to this as another failure of state-run enterprises, as if a private utility wouldn't simply charge you double for the privilege of the same darkness. Both sides miss the point: the scam is only believable because the reality is so fundamentally broken. You can only con people into believing in a 60,000-person hiring spree if the actual employment landscape looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Furthermore, the timeline of the scam—2026—is a delicious piece of speculative fiction. To believe that Eskom, or indeed the current socio-political framework of South Africa, will be stable enough in 2026 to facilitate a mass education program is to engage in a level of optimism that should be punishable by law. By 2026, we will be lucky if we aren't generating power by running on giant hamster wheels. The scammers are selling a future that doesn't exist, to people who have no present, on behalf of a company that has no clue. It is a perfect trifecta of modern stupidity.

Eskom’s frantic debunking serves as a reminder of their priorities. They are remarkably efficient when it comes to saying 'no.' If they applied the same rigor to boiler maintenance or coal procurement that they apply to issuing press releases about Facebook memes, the country might actually be able to toast a piece of bread at 6:00 PM. But alas, it is much easier to manage expectations than it is to manage a power grid. The utility remains a vestigial organ of a failing state—not quite dead, but certainly not doing anything useful, and occasionally causing a sharp, localized pain in the wallet. As for the 60,000 young people who briefly thought they might have a career? They can return to the reality of South African life: a place where the only thing more reliable than the power going out is the government telling you that it’s for your own good.