‘The horror! The horror!”
Many things happen in a week in our country: saddening, disturbing and often perplexing things. Criminals stealing electricity cables at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, leaving the hospital in chaos and threatening lives, indicates just another level of depravity at the heart of our society.
In response, residents of the Mdantsane Forum took matters into their own hands. They raided nearby homes in an attempt to find the criminals, which they eventually did. The police were largely absent (as is the norm) and the mayhem in the television reports showed only angry residents and a complete breakdown of any semblance of law and order.
Is this what the heart of darkness looks like? Desperate people protecting infrastructure at any cost, wanting a semblance of a life in which a hospital is accessible and safe? Not even a better life — just a life.
All around us there is depravity and decay: potholed roads, water scarcity, infrastructure buckling under the weight of decades of neglect. Our cities and towns are ailing. And then the power cuts.
Unplugged
The brave and powerful front page of the Sowetan said it best, listing some (one could not name all; they are too many) of the black businesses (kasi businesses — there are others, of course) which have been forced to close because of constant power cuts. It simply said, “Unplugged.”
In the Northern Cape, helpless farmers cry out that blackouts are threatening the food chain.
“Help us!” is the plea, as we read of chicks at a Coligny farm dying in the broilers which were not warm enough for them to survive.
It would not be the first time that we collectively weep for the land which has been broken.
Is there anyone listening? Does anyone hear?
It must be difficult to hear if you are a Cabinet minister with a 24-hour electricity supply.
So the South African year has begun pretty much the same way it ended — in crisis.
Towards the end of last year, we watched as the ANC held its elective conference. It started late and its end was deferred to January. That probably sums up the state of the party and, by implication, the state of the nation.
The governing party is awash with internecine battles and corrupt alliances.
Having run out of ideas, it is unable to meaningfully solve anything. Under its leadership the state has become so weak that it can barely be relied upon.
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
(From The Hollow Men by TS Eliot.)
And in the midst of it all, sits a reluctant President.
When the independent panel report on Phala Phala released its findings at the end of last year, it was announced that President Cyril Ramaphosa would address the nation. It was widely expected that Ramaphosa would announce his resignation. And so we waited — only for the address to be abruptly cancelled.
Ramaphosa went to the ANC conference and won more convincingly than he did in 2017. What, we wondered, would he do with his strengthened political position? It is perhaps early days, but nothing indicates that much will change in this presidency which sleepwalks into and through crises.
So, the larger question is whether Ramaphosa wants to hold the position at all. And if he does, for what purpose? Insiders say he was talked out of resigning in December. Since then, the President has not deigned to speak to us about why he decided not to hold a media briefing that day. In fact, he has repeatedly spoken to his party — but not to us.
A citizenry forgotten
This past weekend he addressed the dysfunctional Free State ANC, making many comments about electricity and renewing the ANC. None was really directed at the citizenry, but rather obsequiously, at the party.
During unbearable Stage 6 load shedding, we were told that the President was distressed by it all. That feels hard to believe when he is only heard through his spokesperson and never seen on the television screens he so relished during the pandemic.
Perhaps because that was not a crisis of his party’s making, though it later became one as the disaster relief money was stolen and not much of it reached the intended recipients.
Ramaphosa was recently moved to act by cancelling his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos. It was the right thing to do, given the anger about constant power cuts.
In any event, what would he say to potential investors when we are unable to keep the lights on? When government policy is tortoise-like and often stymied by his own party’s utterances and ideological confusion? When farmers warn of threats to our food supply? When bodies in mortuaries are decaying because of a lack of electricity, and when lives are threatened and courts cannot function?
Squandered opportunities
Since then, however, he has squandered any opportunity to speak to the country or take media questions on the energy crisis. Instead, he has hidden behind the party, his slow and cumbersome energy crisis committee, his spokesperson and his weekly newsletter.
And yet, he took time out of his schedule to fawn over Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.
In the past week, the National Energy Crisis Committee (Neccom) provided the President with an update on the National Energy Plan. It all feels very pedestrian.
“As load shedding continues to wreak havoc on businesses, households and communities, the last thing South Africans want to hear are excuses or unrealistic promises. The demands for an immediate end to power cuts are wholly understandable. Everyone is fed up.” Thus spake the Presidential newsletter.
We were informed:
Steps that have been taken to follow through on the commitments (of the National Energy Plan) include:
- Amendment of Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act to remove licensing requirements for generation projects, which will significantly accelerate private investment.
- Since the licensing threshold was first raised to 100MW, the pipeline of private sector projects has grown to more than 100 projects with over 9,000MW of capacity. The first of these large-scale projects is expected to connect to the grid by the end of this year.
- Neccom has instructed departments to cut red tape and streamline regulatory processes for energy projects, including reducing the timeframe for environmental authorisations to 57 days from over 100 days previously; reducing the registration process from four months to three weeks, and ensuring that grid connection approvals are provided within six months.
- A new ministerial determination has been published for 14,771MW of new generation capacity from wind, solar and battery storage to accelerate further bid windows.
- An additional 300MW has been imported through the Southern African Power Pool, and negotiations are under way to secure a potential 1,000MW from neighbouring countries, starting this year.
- Eskom has developed a programme to purchase power from companies with available generation capacity through a standard offer. The first contracts are expected to be signed in the coming weeks.
- A team of independent experts has been established to work closely with Eskom to diagnose the problems at poorly performing power stations and take action to improve plant performance.
According to Presidential spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, “the energy action plan provides a clear way out of this crisis. South Africa doesn't need any new plans… we are focusing on implementing this plan fully and effectively to achieve energy security for all South Africans.”
Alright, then.
Nothing about the report screamed urgency or crisis.
Crises of credibility
In any event, Ramaphosa’s government suffers such a crisis of credibility that no one believes it will actually do what it says it will. At the heart of it all, South Africa is in a political crisis from which all dysfunction flows, with now dire and life-threatening consequences.
While this crisis was raging, Minister of Minerals and Energy Gwede Mantashe was spending his time in the Free State doing party business. It has become clear that Mantashe, like much of Eskom, is unfit for purpose.
Policy decisions regarding the so-called “just transition” are not simple, but our current crisis is self-inflicted — mostly because the tenders which go along with coal are addictive.
Mantashe’s recent, “I don’t build power stations”, comment is straight out of Nero’s playbook. And then, of course, the usual swipe at “liberal analysts”, European powers and the ubiquitous race card.
“Now, I always accuse some of the people of always looking for Bantu to blame, the Bantu to blame and criticise…” he went on to say.
What a very facile argument.
This is not a government urgently engaged with the existential crisis we face. Is Mantashe taking us deeper into crisis so that our only option becomes the Karpowership deal, costing billions and where corruption is a distinct possibility?
Why are we not harnessing more wind and solar energy at speed? Instead, we remain fixated with fixing Eskom. It cannot be fixed. Like every other state-owned entity, it is just about beyond repair — tragically so.
Just Transition logjam
South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan 2023-2027 has been hailed as brilliant. Of course it is, because we have true patriots — men and women — committed to the intellectual endeavour of finding practical solutions to our challenges. One such is Daniel Mminele, who heads up the Presidential Climate Finance Task Team.
But a plan is just a plan until government signals serious intent — and acts.
As the New York Times editorial board said last week, commenting on a just transition and how South Africa could “quit coal” — ours is a country 80% reliant on coal with more than 200,000 coal-dependent jobs, so the challenge is a wicked political one, but not unsolvable by any means.
The editorial says, “For South Africa, there also will be a temptation to treat solar and wind as supplements rather than replacements for coal power. Political leaders have made clear that they are not willing to sacrifice growth, and even as the government pursues its plans, some have openly argued that coal remains the country’s best option.
“The hardest work, in other words, remains ahead. Given the urgency of addressing climate change, and the momentum to extend similar aid to other nations, it will be crucial to learn, and to adjust, quickly.”
One wonders also whether there are simply too many cooks spoiling the broth here — not only Mantashe, but also several committees, plans, technical teams and work streams, so that no one in this bureaucracy Ramaphosa has created (hidden behind?) can speed anything up.
We are choking on the red tape of Thuma Mina!
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A nimble, intelligent government would be able to make quick decisions about adding renewables to the grid, and convene stakeholders for urgent and meaningful discussions about potential job losses and also how to harness and train for “green jobs”.
This is no easy task and we should not pretend that it is: Hillary Clinton saw her presidential candidacy come undone in large part because people in America’s Rust Belt were not convinced that the just transition would be just for them personally.
And no one expects Ramaphosa or Mantashe to solve the energy crisis overnight — even if it has been inflicted upon us by successive ANC governments and worsened by the rampant corruption and capture of the Zuma years. But we do expect them to show meaningful and honest intent.
If the President appears reluctant, then his government is misguided and inert if the best it can come up with is Mantashe’s swashbuckling nonsense, Naledi Pandor’s talk of sabotage and a progress update by the energy crisis committee.
Urgent partnerships
CEO of Wesgro, Wrenelle Stander, penned a very helpful piece in which she makes the case for urgent partnerships between government, business and civil society, and for increased incentives to invest in the green economy.
But that takes government leadership. We are seeing many metros simply taking things into their own hands and, of course, wealthy individuals are turning to solar energy and inverters.
While the wealthy buy their way out of crises through private medical aid, security, education and now the energy crisis, it is the poor who again bear the brunt of power cuts.
This energy crisis is both killing the economy and, even more tragically, it is reinforcing already deeply entrenched inequality within our society.
South Africa has any number of experts and patriots who would be able to contribute to solving the energy crisis, but that would mean the Ramaphosa-led government would need to listen and be prepared to do whatever it takes to solve the problem. And put South Africans ahead of the ANC’s internal squabbles, its power-mongering and tenderpreneurship.
For Ramaphosa, that will mean sticking his neck out and, first and foremost, firing Mantashe.
We all know he owes Mantashe a rather large political debt.
We also know that nothing about his presidency thus far has indicated anything other than timidity. And so we are compelled to ask, at what point does this timidity not become a dereliction of Ramaphosa’s solemn constitutional obligation to work in the best interests of the Republic?
We are watching in real time as our country falls apart, and there is not a leader in sight who is able to articulate a meaningful response directly to the people or even express a degree of true empathy for what we are facing.
Hollow men and women, all.
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
(From The Hollow Men by TS Eliot.) DM