Mantashe lambasted as ‘fool’ for saying load shedding is a global issue

After 15 years of load shedding, culminating last week in stage 6 for second time since December 2019 and stage 5 this week, Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe yesterday told South Africans to “stop complaining” because electricity outages are a global phenomenon.

However, unlike Europe where gas and power prices are soaring thanks to Russia’s war on Ukraine, SA’s deepening energy crisis is not the result of lack of resources, but rather self-inflicted due to poor management, corruption and incompetence, according to experts and environmental activists.

Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse chief executive Wayne Duvenage said Mantashe had “made a fool of himself” by comparing Europe’s energy crisis to SA’s self-made, decades-long disaster, which proved that “ours is a unique problem”.

“We don’t have to get used to the types of issues we are facing in energy, water and poor service delivery from government,” he said.

“Our issue here has got nothing to do with the issues of resources. It’s got everything to do with a government that has its eye on its own pockets and its own political party issues, as opposed to adopting a servant attitude and approach towards serving the people of this country.”

During the signing off on three projects under bid window five of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, Mantashe said the mood was understandable because “when you explain the crisis, South Africans consider themselves an island”.

“When you say electricity energy crisis is a global phenomenon, South Africans don’t accept that. They think it’s a South African crisis,” he said.

“This is a global phenomenon but we have a responsibility here to address the crisis. “That’s why we’re still in crisis mode – because it’s a crisis.

You don’t need to explain it, you just need to work hard to resolve it.” Political analyst Ralph Mathekga slammed Mantashe’s remarks, saying: “You cannot explain SA’s energy crisis in the context of the global energy crisis when ours is a self-created problem that has got to do with capacity.”

He said Eskom executives, together with the minister, were just reacting to the crisis and had failed to establish some level of stability because now “we need to talk about the plan. Where is the plan?”

Independent consultant in energy research Hilton Trollip told The Citizen the problems affecting South Africa and Europe were vastly different, as Europe had a massive energy shortage because Russia had cut off gas supplies.

“Gas is a major supply of electricity in Europe. It’s as simple as that,” he said. “They haven’t got massive energy supply [issues because they don’t have enough electricity generation capacity].”

He said South Africa had not built sufficient generating capacity for the past seven years. “Much of our old fleet has been so hammered that it’s now reaching beyond-repair state.”

Meanwhile, Greenpeace Africa urged Mantashe to champion renewable energy. Technologies like wind, solar and battery storage presented the opportunity to bring online the electricity South Africa desperately needed within the next 18 to 36 months, relative to fossil fuel technologies, which would only be realised in the next 15 years.

The organisation’s climate and energy campaigner, Thandile Chinyavanhu, said: “The signing of these contracts is a welcome step in the direction of the just transition towards a renewable energy-powered future, even if it is a very small step.”

“It’s clear that continued fossil fuel dependence is not the answer for the country’s electricity crisis or for the climate crisis. The future is renewable.”

ALSO READ: Mantashe comparing SA, Europe’s energy crises is misleading, ‘absolute nonsense’

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za. Additional reporting by Nica Richards