I'm supposed to file this column on a Tuesday evening at the latest. But this week I kept my cool and held my fire until I could look into the whites (if you'll pardon the word) of either Jacob Maroga's eyes or Bobby Godsell's, or preferably both.

I wanted - while Little Julie Malema and Zwelinzima Vavi sprinkled holy water and Desmond Tutu sang "Kumbaya, my lord" - to see Maroga and Godsell standing together on that Megawatt Park podium, clasping hands, hugging one another in the best ANC/Struggle manner and telling us that bygones were Saigons and that they were going to work together and both put their queer shoulders to the turbine.

(No, no, neither is gay, as best I know. It's a quote from an old Allen Ginsberg poem, America: "I'd better get right down to the job./ It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway./ [Nevertheless,] America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.")

Alas, it was not to be. Yesterday we encountered a fellow called Mpho Makwana instead. He was pretty cool - low key, calm, the antithesis of arrogance - and he told us that Maroga had indeed resigned and that he, Makwana, was the acting chairman and CEO, and - to cut his story even shorter - that play, which had been interrupted by a small squall, was back on, and we would still have lights and power for a while, at least until shabbes a fortnight.

And I thought to myself: "Well, that dude is pretty cool and that was a bit of an anti-climax - and so what was all that Sturm und Drang from Vytjie Mentor and Terry ‘ting-a-ling' Bell earlier on e-TV? They, along with other folk in the media, made me think that Seffrica was about to dissolve and disappear into the sea. Jeez, those folk in the media are a bunch of panic mechanics. Everything's cool; what was the fuss about?"

But I cogitated a bit more (sometimes I do that) and realised that this morning we probably know even less than we have during the last couple of weeks.

We sort of know what happened with Maroga, but that's all. He had had a meeting with the board; and the chairman - and maybe a few others besides - said to him: "Lookit here, Jake. Look at this list. There's a lot of stuff that you are supposed to have done, but haven't. Now, listen dude, you get paid a shit load to do this stuff. And yet 43 of the items on the list of 44 have not been done. This is not right."

At which point - and I sympathise with Maroga (I too must attend meetings with my head of department, Anton the Harbinger, and he also hauls out a little list from his pocket and fixes me with a beady eye) - Maroga grows irritated and says: "My brothers, who do you think's been piloting this heap of flatulence through stormy waters and taking all the flack? If you don't like the way I work, you can kiss my Royal Canadian. In fact [and remember it had been a long, trying day for Maroga], in fact I'm outta here. I resign."

But then he arrived home and Mrs. M, bless her, said: "You did what? Jacob, are you out of your tiny electrical engineer's mind? Do you know how much boodle you just kissed goodbye? If you, my little pudding, ever - ever - want you-know-what again, you'll go right back there to that place and tell them that you were a bit over-hasty."

So Maroga thinks it through and then he gets on the blower to his buddies at the Black Management Forum, the ANC Yoof League, and the Naledi Ratepayers' Association - and he tells that everyone to start banging the drum because the whiteys - in the shape of that ex-PFP and ex-Anglo creature with the bad haircut - to wit, one Bobby Godsell - was on his case.

"Have a look at the ‘Net," Maroga said to his friends. "This unreconstructed whitey Godsell was born in September 1952. This means he is a Virgoan and therefore anal retentive to boot - hence his list."

So Maroga goes back to the board and says he was only kidding and he hadn't really resigned and anyway that his diabetes medication makes him a trifle impetuous, and so on.

What he didn't realise was that most of the okes were happy to see him go. In truth, he had been getting up their noses. They were bloody sick and tired of their espresso machines not working at vital moments. Then the trouble began because Maroga said that he had in any case never resigned; but they said that they had all heard him.

But we are good, kind people in this country. We don't just tell people to take a walk (well, maybe we do in the media sector, but certainly not in the public sector). We like folk to retain their "dignity" (as Makwana called it). Consequently we get into a pretty long, protracted and undignified row with the person about filthy lucre and how much he or she will or will not get at the taxpayer's expense - all of it under the watchful and inaccurate eye of the so-called media.

Consider the case of Dali Mapoofey. Consider the case of Maroga - who, even though he might not be getting a golden handshake, has doubtless pushed off with an agreement that he doesn't have to pay back his large housing loan - not in a hurry anyway.

This much we know or surmise.

What we don't know is what happened (a) when Godsell went to see President Jacob G Zuma and (b) why, having been to visit JZ, Godsell fell on his sword?

Did JZ perhaps say the following? "Oh, my brother, good to see you as always. Pull up a chair - there, there, that striped one next to Mrs. Zuma number four. Listen, my brother, I know you like to get things done and all that quaint first world nonsense - we, in my rural village in KZN, know that actually nothing ever gets done in life - but listen, my brother, Eskom is not your company. It's ours. It's mine and Zwelinzima's and Blade's and Julie's. You can't go round firing the boss there without first telling me and Babs [Hogan]. You should at least have spoken to us. This is not Anglo, china." [Bobby put this conversation rather well in his statement about his resignation: "Thus far government, as Eskom's sole shareholder, has been unable either to support the board's original decision (to accept the resignation) or its two attempts at resolving this dispute."]

Or were things even tougher? Did JZ and Babs make it clear in no uncertain terms that the price of Maroga's head was Bobby's own? You've heard of horse trading - this is known as head trading.

But if JZ and Babs wanted to retain Maroga - so much so that Godsell drove back to Joey's, flipped open his laptop, and tapped out his resignation - why has the board dumped Maroga? Did Godsell's unexpected resignation - he needed neither the boodle nor the indignity - scare the bejesus out of everyone? Did the folk in Pretoria realise that, if they left Maroga to carry on without Godsell carrying the can with him, Eskom was going to be in even worse diddley than it has been heretofore?

And what happened behind the scenes - in terms of the messy skirmish that obviously took place between those against Godsell and those against Maroga? Because, clearly, there must have been a war. As usual, of course, the usual "racist" stuff came up.

But what else can we expect? Though it pains me to say this, Bullfinch (aka Bullard) is correct. An accusation of "racism" is (if you'll pardon the phrase) the white noise that is the background to everything that happens in the beloved country these days. What we have to try to unravel is what was really going on.

Or maybe nothing special happened. Maybe Maroga resigned in a fit of pique; then changed his mind; the usual crew started blowing out white noise with the speed and skill that Amor Vittone is said to blow out air; JZ and Babs told Bobby to confer before ever doing anything; and now we have Babs clutching the moral high ground - "As minister, I refused to override the principles of corporate governance by imposing a person in the position of CEO" ... blah, blah.

Oh well, these are just some of the issues about which we do not know. But maybe we will some day in the far-distant future - when we stumble out of the white noise on to the plains of quietude and calm ... yeah, right.

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