Mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe’s utterances this year on SA’s electricity and broader energy crisis remind me of the tactics employed by Vladimir Putin’s regime, designed to make serfs out of the people while the tsar rules with absolute power.
In the 16th century the tsar of Russia fulfilled an almost sacred and heavenly role. This sacred power creates around itself an absolute, impenetrable cordon of guiltlessness.
How else can one explain Mantashe’s convoluted conflation of Europe’s broader energy crisis with our long-running crisis, which is broadly of the ANC government’s making?
First by ignoring the explicit warnings contained in the 1998 White Paper that we would run into trouble around 2008 without investment in new generation capacity. Former president Thabo Mbeki ignored that advice until it was too late — his recent selective amnesia on this is worth another column in its own right.
Second, Mantashe’s comments about 20,000MW of Eskom generation capacity sitting idle are patently false. Far from sitting idle, this kit is simply breaking down repeatedly, for a variety of reasons. Though Mantashe did not cause the electricity crisis, since his appointment the department of mineral resources & energy has not played an effective role in solving it.
There are two main causes.
First, the extremely poor performance of Eskom plant, caused by years of neglect and not least by state capture and all that entailed. Just read the Eskom inquiry and Zondo commission reports. Eskom is in fact pursuing a claim for R3.8bn against seven former executives — Messrs Molefe, Koko, Singh, Daniels, Ngubane, Mabude and Pamensky. Of course, they are stalling through legal notices and interlocutory applications, but a case management judge has been appointed and the wheels of justice are slowly grinding.
The part played by the department is under the spotlight too, as its mandated role to either procure energy or instruct and facilitate Eskom to do so has been neglected. Instead of seeking people to blame we should be asking who is legally responsible to find solutions and what they must do now. The answer is neither solely Eskom nor solely the department — they both have roles to play.
About 30 large, complicated, and some old, power stations containing poorly constructed and maintained equipment continually break down. Eskom is fixing them, but as soon as one is back in service another breaks down. They cannot be “ordered” to work however much the tsar divines it. Scarce skills and huge financial resources and co-operation are needed to fix them properly and keep them going.
SA is reaping the whirlwind of years of abuse at Eskom. I sympathise with the utility's management — the best professionals don’t work mainly for money, they do it for job satisfaction, and that must be thin on the ground at Eskom right now. A new board won’t solve that problem.
No matter what Eskom does with the resources at its disposal we cannot expect much improvement in the Eskom fleet’s reliability. Pinning the whole problem and solution on this would be irresponsible. In any case, this is actually public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan’s portfolio, even though Mantashe seems to have the most to say about Eskom.
Mantashe’s legislated responsibility is to ensure sufficient capacity is procured, and it is a reality that since 2015, when former Eskom CEOs Matshela Koko and Brian Molefe refused to sign power purchase agreements when there were projects ready to go, no new substantial generation has been contracted by either the department or Eskom.
Whatever the reasons for this, the fact remains that the government has also failed to contract coal independent power producers, and it has failed to move the gas determination to a bid process. We hear about determinations and bidding rounds, but we don’t see new contracts. Yes, Eskom must do its best to fix those machines and keep them running. But it is equally, if not more, important that the department of mineral resources & energy gets new generation built and linked to the grid.
At the heart of the impasse remains the old baseload chestnut. On the one hand it appears that Mantashe has been advised by one group of engineers that wind and solar are not a solution to the power shortage. On the other side of the debate there are a whole lot of engineers and electricity system modellers who do not agree with the advisers the minister has chosen to inform his opinion on renewable energy and baseload.
This latter group publish their analysis and results in public documents and peer-reviewed journals. I have not seen this from the minister’s advisers. Yet it is Mantashe’s constitutionally enshrined responsibility (Chapter 10, S196-197) to ensure that policy-making is informed by transparency and public access to information.
It is time to organise an orderly and respectful public debate between these camps of engineers and electricity system modellers. The national economic crisis is too serious to be resolved by one group holding sway in their private advice to the minister while the open and peer-reviewed analysis of another group is attacked based on their affiliations or funding or “beliefs about renewable energy”.
This is not about beliefs — it is about objective science.
• Avery, a financial journalist and broadcaster, produces BDTV's Business Watch. Contact him at Badger@businesslive.co.za.
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