Nothing encapsulates the government’s utter failure quite like the fact that it could not keep the lights on for nearly a year at its Nelson Mandela Bay education offices. Staff have been sitting idle for months at a time, unable to work, because there has not been power at the Gqeberha and Kariega offices. 

This newspaper reported on Monday that since September, staff at the department’s offices in Gqeberha and Kariega have had to travel as far as Graaff-Reinet and Makhanda to make use of electronic equipment. On other occasions, they sat idle...