Ramaphosa’s Eskom plan more theatrical than practical – experts

Although it has taken more than a decade of load shedding for the government to react to the country’s electricity crisis, experts say it seems Eskom and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plan for the power utility is more “theatrical than practical”.

Just two months after Ramaphosa announced new emergency measures to deal with the crisis, political and economic analyst Daniel Silke said with Eskom battling to keep the lights on, it was hard to believe there was a plan to salvage the situation.

“The plan that was adopted a few months ago was welcomed by energy experts, but I think the plan itself, in theory, should alleviate the crisis we are in over the next year or two.

“But it’s not as simple. It’s one thing to have a plan and it’s another thing to implement it. The problem in South Africa is there are many regulatory bottlenecks; the bidding process for renewables and for the public-private participation programmes which, themselves, can be delayed.

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“In theory, the plan is a plan and it will have a positive impact, but if there are any delays in the implementation of this plan and if politics gets in the way, we’ll be sitting with power outages with an economy even more damaged than at the moment.”

On Sunday, stage 6 load shedding was implemented and, although the power utility announced it would reduce it to stage 5 at midnight yesterday, energy expert Ted Blom said if SA didn’t “bite the bullet and clean out properly now, the problem will just come back repeatedly”.

“Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has used up all the goodwill afforded a newcomer [but] he has really not distinguished himself.

“And as far as I can ascertain, Eskom executives are just puppets, jumping at their political masters’ instructions,” he said.

‘Pointless for Ramaphosa to rush back’

When asked about Ramaphosa cutting his overseas trip short to oversee the response to the country’s electricity crisis, Blom said his return would not achieve anything. It was Cabinet’s duty to run their portfolios and he had zero impact in the war room.

Silke said it was pointless for the president to rush back, as he had failed to fix Eskom.

“There has been an ideological failure on the part of the president and the ANC itself to accept the real weakness in the system is the inept way in which the state has interfered with the electricity generation process,” he said.

“They have failed to adequately encourage the private sector participation; it has taken the lights going out and the country [falling into] a deep energy crisis to move the ANC on a more pragmatic attitude towards Eskom itself.”

In his note, South Africa’s Energy Transition Is Mired in Disaster Capitalism published by jacobin.com, Alex Lenferna, secretary of the South African Climate Justice Coalition, said the climate and energy crisis had created the need for new renewable energy urgently, as the president’s plan might provide the most likely path to deliver in the short to medium term.

“Supporting the president’s plan against attacks from the coal lobby might be the most feasible plan in the short term to ensure renewables come online,” he said.

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“But supporting the president’s plan from the left, amounts to somewhat of a Faustian bargain. While it unlocks renewable energy, it puts SA onto a heavily privatised vision of energy generation, with little to nothing by way of policies to ensure progressive, affordable, socially owned renewable energy.”

He said Ramaphosa’s energy plan and the American Inflation Reduction Act might be necessary compromises. However, if there should be a more progressive energy and climate justice future, then “we need to work to strengthen the left and build the political power needed for more radical change”.

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za