SA’S ECONOMY: Look for market opportunitites

I was privileged to attended a motivational event put on by the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI), in Rosebank.

The Hyatt Regency SACCI Presidential Forum was attended by the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, and the chairman of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA), Dr Kelvin Kemm, who both addressed the meeting.

Gordhan made it clear that if South Africans want the economy to grow, then businesses will need to invest in it with its own money, as a demonstration of confidence.

He also said we, as businesses, need to look for market opportunities.

The Minister went on to say that the budget theme remains ”resilience” for the next four years, in a complex and volatile world.

If revenue, therefore, does not come through, we will have to make even tougher decisions.

Good news is that sectors that are growing include the transport and communication industries, finance and government, along with personal services.

Sectors shirking, though, are agriculture, mining and manufacturing.

When you apply the multiplier effect, sectors which create the most jobs are the agriculture, construction, wholesale, catering and retail sectors. It is these sectors where opportunities must be sought.

According to the Minister, there is no shortage of money, and he acknowledges that accessing it is where the bottleneck lies.

To this end the government has spent and will be spending billions on addressing and eradicating “red tape” in the doing of business with government, which will also address corruption, as they bring as many processes as possible online.

Gordhan also pointed out that the gap between the haves and the have-nots is not a South African issue alone, it is a worldwide situation experienced in most countries around the world and is creating a lot of mistrust between people.

I took heart in the fact that the Minister challenged the presidents of SA’s Chambers of Commerce to take the message back to their constituencies, that they should become known as the generation that took the South African economy forward.

There was also a rousing address by Kemm on nuclear energy in South Africa.

He addressed a number of untruths and rumours that are floating around in the media and public domain, regarding nuclear power and the government’s nuclear programme, which is only months, or even weeks, away from being given the go-ahead.

The burning question, of course, is: do we need nuclear power in South Africa, is it safe, and will it be affordable?

At the end of the day, it was made clear that, in order for us to grow an economy, we need power. It is, therefore, ludicrous to expect or even think we can grow our economy and still cut electricity consumption.

The world doubles its energy requirements roughly every 25 years.

Looking at the South African context, solar and wind are options, but on a small scale, dedicated to a facility opportunity.

As a baseline requirement to support South Africa’s needs, this is not sufficient to address our needs going forward.

According to Kemm, nuclear energy is as safe as any energy source, but its safety record has been tarnished and greatly exaggerated by anti-nuclear lobbyists and the media at large.

By way of example, take the information around Fukushima; this was manipulation of facts at its worst. Fukushima was, in truth, not a nuclear accident, but rather an act of God.

It was hit by an earth quake and a Tsunami in short succession, yet not a single life was lost due to radiation or the Fukushima nuclear plant itself. This was established by a 28-country investigation panel.

The pictures beamed across the world of a Fukushima plant on fire was, in fact, an oil depo several kilometres up the coast.

Chernobyl was a nuclear accident, during which 60 lives were lost. They were the first respondents in; helicopter pilots and firefighters sent in to fight the fire and spray chemicals on the reactor to prevent radiation.

You won’t find two-headed children or animals roaming the plains around Chernobyl or Fukushim, according Kemm.

The South African government’s nuclear programme is set to cost R650-billion. It is this that allows the media to speculate that the cost of nuclear power will be exorbitant,

Kemm, however, said that the forecast would have the power costing no more than we currently pay, after the capital outlay. The cost of supplying nuclear energy per unit is significantly lower than coal, or even wind and solar power.

The identified site for South Africa’s second nuclear reactor is south of Port Elizabeth, at Oyster Bay.

The site has already been surveyed, pegged and been subjected to an environmental impact assessment spanning an area of 100km2, to cover all eventualities.

If you draw a line from Cape Town to Pretoria, it would be the same length as a line from Rome to London; if you are to say that London should get its power from Rome, or Rome from London, you would say, don’t be ridiculous.

That is, in fact, what is happening in South Africa today. South Africa is the size of the entire Western Europe. South Africans have done it before and will do it again, we currently export nuclear technology to Korea and Russia.

The nuclear pebbles that are part of and drive the Nuclear Pebble Bed Reactor, which programme is being revived, have been judged to be the single best in the world.

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