President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Mayihlome Rally manifesto launch in Moses Mabhida stadium. Picture: Khaya Ngwenya / Independent Newspapers
WE ARE IN in an election manifesto season with elections being held on May 29. In focus are political parties’ energy plans: the good, the bad and the ugly.
In this column, I will examine the ANC’s, EFF’s and DA’s manifestos.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his speech at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in KwaZulu-Natal during the ANC’s launch of its 2024 election manifesto, spoke on the energy commitments to South Africans.
The ANC’s energy focus:
The section relating to energy on the manifesto touched on key areas, but gave no commitment towards the continuing use and beneficiation of coal. South Africa's economy is coal reliant and coal based.
The points highlighted are vague and non-specific – difficult sell to the public and the voters. This as the load-shedding crisis suffered by South Africa over the past five years will be the main deciding factor for this year's elections. People are going to vote on whether they have electricity or not as it has a major impact on their living standards and finances.
The “new normal” of load shedding has left South Africans frustrated and fed up in the face of a failed social pact and the collapse of the economy during the past five years as a direct result.
Ramaphosa’s glib promise this month to end load shedding in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) did not go down well with the nation. It was seen as a joke as it is not the first time he has made that promise.
And it is the power crisis that will be the deciding factor of who wins the election and if the ANC is going to be the majority ruling party or if the ANC will be reduced to a minority party ruling in a coalition. That decision will be made by the voters.
South Africans want a real lasting solution to ending load shedding, not some pie in the sky statement that is so out of touch it becomes a meme on social media.
The manifest also fails to address current energy woes.
The only long-term lasting solution is for Eskom to fix and prioritise its coal fleet power stations before any other alternatives can be considered.
South Africa’s load-shedding crisis has historical roots in:
The failure of the government in providing adequate budgets:
South Africans remember 2015 with almost 84 days' worth of load shedding and the relief when it ended with the application of operational strategies and efficient management processes. And Eskom was performing at a higher Energy Availability Factor than currently at that time.
When one compares the ANC manifesto against the EFF manifesto. You do notice stark differences in the two manifestos.
The EFF laid out a clear path to ending load shedding within six months.
EFF Manifesto on Energy: Summary
The ANC has only four points in their manifesto on energy with scanty detail. Whereas the EFF has prepared 37 points with detailed information on what their plans are to end load shedding.
Starting with a definite time line which is outlined in their manifesto.
In summary, the EFF Manifesto was more detailed, focused and touched on multiple aspects of the energy crisis while providing a practical approach on how to end load shedding. And to build a longer lasting energy generation capacity for South Africa.
The EFF manifesto section on energy makes the ANC energy section of their manifesto look like a joke.
DA energy manifesto:
The DA manifesto focus on energy – just on the opening statement – missed the opportunity to identify with South Africa’s energy crisis and dilemma.
Instead, it chose to rattle off in a non-coherent blame game of Eskom infrastructure as being old and outdated, which is a blatant misinformation. Power stations by design are built to last over generations.
And according to engineering specifications, if proper maintenance is carried out on a power station, every seven to 15 years a well-maintained power station technically gets overhauled during that operational life cycle.
So it doesn't inspire confidence to see a political party, which is appealing to a majority black South Africans, in the same tone pushing a totally disconnected white European, Eurocentric approach to power and energy.
The DA’s energy manifesto starts off by painting a problem statement picture of the South African energy landscape.
And immediately it jumps to promoting a private sector-led solution by Independent Power Producer (IPPs) to the country’s energy crisis.
So according to the DA, breaking up and privatising Eskom is their best idea and giving private suppliers the monopoly towards electricity generation. An absolute recipe for disaster!
There is not a single IPP that can match Eskom’s generation capacity, let alone replace Eskom in the next five- to 10-year horizon. So the proposal is a hope for a miracle devoid of science.
The DA proposes unbundling of Eskom, and restructuring Eskom and to establish an open electricity market for trading of electricity, and unbundling by establishing a separate national grid operator company. This is a cut-and-paste from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund book of hymns on structural reforms strategies.
Looking at the current strategies and policy proposals pursued by the ANC in the Energy Action Plan, one can see the direct policy link of the ANC’s Energy Action Plan in the DA’s energy manifesto.
So it means that the ANC is currently implementing a DA-led plan under the auspices of the Energy Action Plan. That’s exactly what the DA spelled out in their energy manifesto plan.
If one compares the DA energy manifesto with the ANC’s Energy Action Plan, you will find that the DA is actually leading the ANC in the arena of energy policy priority planning.
The ANC is using the DA energy plan and just nicely named it the Energy Action Plan. So there is no difference between the ANC and the DA energy manifesto plans.
Their focus is on driving unbundling and privatisation of Eskom and giving away Eskom power generation and grid capacity to the private sector.
Three different approaches; your choice:
For the sake of clarity, I am not choosing nor promoting political parties, as that is not my intention. I am comparing three different views on how to solve the power crisis that faces South Africa with the intent in this column, to be unbiased.
As the election seasons have officially kicked. The decision now rests with the voters to decide as to who will win the May 2024 elections.
However, this will only happen If the upcoming elections are free and fair, and the election results are not going to be rigged and tempered with to give a determined outcome – a concern that is rising in the social discourse of South Africa.
Crown Prince Adil Nchabeleng is president of Transform RSA and an independent energy expert.
* The views in this column are independent of Business Report and Independent Media.
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