China’s gift of generators to SA is telling

The generators that the Chinese government promised the South African government to help alleviate the impact of load shedding in public institutions like schools and hospitals arrived last week and Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa received the shipment in Durban.

If the minister wanted a way to tell South Africans that the country’s energy problems are not temporary, then the noise made around receiving these generators was a somewhat subtle way to whisper: “Expect worse from our own grid in the foreseeable future.”

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Not to look a gift horse in the mouth –but for a member of the country’s executive to make such a spectacle out of receiving a charitable donation to help resolve a problem he should be working out a permanent solution for gives off vibes of flailing in raging waters.

That the donation arrived in the country right in the middle of the country’s most dire electricity blackouts since 2019 only made the situation appear worse.

Ramokgopa appears to be an affable person from his manner of speaking, but it would appear that having to appear in hastily arranged press conferences the moment the power grid threatens to require beyond stage 6 load shedding is corroding the little bit of goodwill that he had when he assumed office.

And his constant efforts to make good of a worsening situation is eliminating the credibility of his person and his office.

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He might not be doing anything out of the ordinary for a politician, but it would appear that the esteemed minister would do more for the country as head of Eskom than the overarching role he has received to give political leadership to the country’s energy mix.

There is an urgent need to take the country into his confidence about the actual state of Eskom. It is not a new need, it has always been there but the country has been strung along on promises that if this generating unit at Medupi or at Kusile came back online, then the end of electricity blackouts would be very close.

That has happened and the situation only seems to be getting worse. It is an open secret that SA has been spared higher stages of electricity blackouts because Eskom has always operated open-cycle gas turbines to make up for an about 2 000KW shortfall in coal-generated electricity.

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In other words, Eskom depends on an emergency method of generating power to keep the lights on, even in what the country refers to as normal circumstances.

That is akin to keeping a patient in ICU because the open wards of that hospital are totally messed up. The problem is ICU costs money. A lot of money. Billions.

And the billions allocated to buy the diesel required to keep stages 6 and 8 at bay is running out.

Ramokgopa needs to be honest and tell the country what will happen when the remaining R9 billion of the allocated R29 billion runs out before March 2024.

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Are the higher stages of load shedding inevitable and must the country gear up for an even more difficult 2024?

If the enthusiasm with which the minister of electricity is receiving what appeared to be ill-suited Chinese generators (too small for hospitals) is anything to go by, the end is not in sight for load shedding as President Cyril Ramokgopa wanted the country to believe in the middle of October, just two months ago.

Ramokgopa, the smooth-talking politician at the centre of each Eskom crisis, must give way to Ramokgopa, the excellent administrator who tells it like it is.