In January 2007 South Africa woke up to a black day when, for the first time, the whole country experienced electrical power cuts. We faced an inconvenient truth and knew then that things would never be the same — that change was in the air, so to speak. Power failures cost the economy between R2,6-billion and R8-billion a year.

I am not cynical about EIAs, I just have a skewed view of their effectiveness when most of the times I hear about them it is from the same advocacy groups conducting campaigns in the media. The truth is that a hungry stomach does not see the grace in the buck, writes Donald Kau.