• A Google search for “megawatt park” points to a renamed Eskom head office – MegaGravy Train Park.
• The utility also seemingly has a soup kitchen in the Gravy Shop on its premises, according to Google Maps.
• Google allows anybody to suggest edits to the names of business on Maps.

South Africans are fed up with Eskom and its woeful attempts at keeping the lights on. Now South Africans have seemingly changed the name of the utility‘s headquarters over on Google Maps. Running a search Megawatt Park – Eskom’s headquarters in Sunninghill, Johannesburg – gives the result MegaGravy Train Park as showcased below.

How did this happen? Well as it turns out a business can have its named changed on Google Maps without its permission.

“If you’re familiar with a place, you can provide feedback that helps Google Maps decide whether to change a place’s information,” reads a support page.

Anybody can “suggest an edit” to a business’ name although Google appears to recommend that a photo be included to verify the suggestion. The image that appears alongside the search result is over a year old so we aren’t sure if an image was used.

Hilariously, there is also seemingly a new tenant at Eskom’s Megawatt Park, The Gravy Shop. This business has no contact information so we can’t confirm if it exists but it’s funny.

Eskom has not acknowledged the name change on Google Maps but we can’t think that Calib Cassim interim chief executive officer at Eskom will stand for this mockery.

We do wonder if there will be an repercussions for this little prank but we doubt a name change on Google is doing more reputational harm than Stage 3 and Stage 5 loadshedding, which South Africa is currently beset with for this week.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]