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Duretor has a tough job. He's the CEO of SCOM, the power company that provides most of South

Africa's electricity.

It's a huge responsibility. It does come with its burdens, but it also comes with its

moments of excitement.

The company is plagued by problems like corruption, aging power plants and mounting

debt. Right now, it's unable to generate enough electricity to power the country. There

are blackouts all the time, sometimes for more than 11 hours a day. All of these problems

put Duretor under a lot of pressure, and then one Monday last December, things took a sinister

turn.

It began that morning when Duretor drank some coffee.

Capuchino actually in his personalized mug, and he drank that, and shortly thereafter

started feeling confused and dizzy and just generally really unwell.

That's our colleague, Alexandra Wexler. She says that hours later, Duretor was shaking

in a bed at a medical clinic. A doctor ran some tests.

And when the results came back, it showed that he had an ingested cyanide and was suffering

from cyanide poisoning.

Wow.

It's pretty wild.

What does this incident say about how hard it is to be the CEO of this company?

I think that being CEO of SCOM has got to be the toughest job in South Africa at the

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