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MTN South Africa has accelerated its drive to ensure a resilient network as many of its towers are, in some cases, completely stripped, with the company spending over R1.5-billion this year.

Teams are working around the clock to mitigate increased theft and vandalism at MTN South Africa’s towers.

During a media visit to one of the recently vandalised sites and another recently repaired site in Soweto, MTN South Africa chief technology and information officer Michele Gamberini points to the excessive damage that follows the theft of batteries.

“Vandalism is endemic at the moment,” he says.

While theft and vandalism is experienced across all provinces, the Eastern Cape is most affected at the moment, with data revealing that over 390 unique sites have been vandalised since January 2022, with criminals often returning to the same sites over five times after each repair.

Overall, more than 1 000 vandalism incidents have been recorded over the past year in the Eastern Cape, with cable, battery, equipment and air conditioner theft all on the rise.

These trends are persisting across all regions in 2023.

Often, once the batteries are stolen, vandals will strip the site of anything they believe could potentially be of value, including, for example, the components of on-site antennas.

Other items damaged and stolen are doors, containers, fences, security systems and locks.

“Sometimes we have to rebuild the entire site,” he explains, with diesel theft, copper, battery and generator theft leading to extended periods of downtime as recovery teams work to repair the damage and bring in replacement batteries.

“The vandalism of base stations has shifted from opportunistic criminality, from petty thieves breaking into the stations and sites to get what copper or metals they can get, to a more organised form of criminality being run by syndicates,” MTN South Africa CEO Charles Molapisi added in a statement post the media visit.

“They will, at times, disguise themselves as third party contractors so as not to be confronted by local communities and take that opportunity to specifically steal batteries.”

He points out that if a site is not secured soon enough after it has been hit by a syndicate, the opportunistic criminality will then also occur.

This is an increasing trend occurring as the country persistently experiences higher levels of loadshedding, with statistics showing that bouts of loadshedding have a direct correlation with the spike in vandalism and battery or generator theft at network sites.

“For instance, during the period of stage six loadshedding last year there was a major escalation of attacks and tower companies recorded a 250% increase in the loss of generators,” Molapisi says.

It is not only MTN suffering the consequences, with the challenge affecting all mobile operators and with the sharing of sites by multiple operators, damage to sites can impact many thousands of customers, across networks.

Noting the critical need to scale up protection of the sites, Gamberini says that MTN South Africa is “hardening” the sites through a three-phase resilience plan, in conjunction with MTN’s tower sites partner IHS, which involves the deployment of concrete blocks to secure the batteries, concrete bunkers and high security cabinets.

MTN has also started replacing its DC copper cables with aluminium cables in transparent casings on masts at many sites, while a TX Ring resilience programme to protect sites across all provinces is on track, showing good results.

Alongside these initiatives is close collaboration with the police and heightened security at sites, which is leading to more arrests.

Gamberini tells Engineering News that the company is also reviewing hybrid options for its sites, with proof of concepts under way at two sites that will include new generation vertical wind turbines on the towers to provide additional power.

The group has also activated its first site fed by a hybrid of batteries and solar.

“At MTN we are doing ...

While South Africa’s water sector challenges are vast, and longstanding, many external factors are impacting on the country’s ability to provide reliable clean quality water to all its citizens.

This is according to a panel participating in a Creamer Media-hosted webinar titled ‘Water: Challenges in water infrastructure and treatment’, held on March 29, which was facilitated by Institute for Security Studies African Climate Risk and Human Security Programme head Dhesigen Naidoo.

Panellists included University of the Witwatersrand School of Governance visiting adjunct professor Mike Muller, Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) acting deputy director-general for infrastructure management Leonardo Manus, Protea Chemicals Watercare Solutions GM Joyce Jabane-Bauwens, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Water Centre senior researcher and chemical engineer for Smart Places Dr Jeffrey Baloyi and Rand Water chief strategy officer Vusi Kubheka.

The panellists agreed that it was time to shift the view that South Africa had a water crisis and that only climate change was to blame.

“I think that changing the nature of the discussion around water being part of some of the challenges, but also a victim of many other challenges inside the system, [is required],” says Naidoo in response to Muller's comments that the country faced a range of challenges impacting its water supply.

While Muller reaffirmed that the challenges the country was facing did not amount to a water crisis as such, he acknowledged, however, that many citizens were concerned that it did when taps run dry, sometimes for days or weeks at a time.

“We have a whole range of problems involving water, and they start at the sort of level of the globe, with the climate issues, and they go all the way down to the household where we open the tap in the morning and the water does not come in.

“Unless we really try and understand what the problem is, at what level and who is responsible for it, it is actually quite difficult to have a discussion.”

Muller highlighted a number of challenges facing the sector, including a management problem, largely in the power sector when loadshedding or power outages disabled the water pumps feeding households from reservoirs.

Further, problems at a municipal level are leading to the recurrent failure of water supply, while in terms of areas with persistent drought, in some cases, it is a planning issue.

Further, areas that are suffering from drought, in some cases, have had viable alternatives to feed in water from rivers, as opposed to from depleting dams, but have not implemented the planning already in place and the proposed infrastructure required to action this.

“We have no water problem, but there are issues around the water that will lead to water problems,” Kubheka commented.

“There are many factors that are influencing the situation; factors like climate change, where a heatwave in October last year forced demand to accelerate, but there are also the challenges of the power supply problems that emanate from Eskom, impacting on [cities'] power [utilities], and subsequently infrastructure functions,” he added.

He further pointed to vandalism, and theft of cables, which also had an impact on supply, which was exacerbated by a lack of sufficient storage for water in the municipal areas.

“We are planning together with the municipalities. We are investing a lot of money into new infrastructure to try and accommodate our customers [municipalities] by encouraging them to invest in their own areas. We are also looking at creative ways of actually coming into the municipal space and helping them from a value chain management and reticulation point of view.”

Muller added that there had been many discussions about the ability of municipalities to provide reliable services and the failings at local government level.

“If we are honest, it is the poor who really get poor services, as they live in poor, largely rural municipalities, w...

Metair faced a tough 2022 financial year, with its results significantly impacted by hyperinflation in Türkiye; project costs to support the launch of the new Ford Ranger; higher logistics costs; the knock-on effects of flooding at the Toyota plant; as well as increased interest charges owing to high net-debt levels.

These factors, combined with higher energy costs, “required active management to stabilise operations”, says the international manufacturer, distributor and retailer of energy storage solutions and automotive components.

The JSE-listed Metair saw group revenue for the financial year ended December 31 increase by 10%, to R13.91-billion, boosted by overall higher vehicle production, as well as strong export sales from Türkiye.

Growth in battery unit prices and increased cost content in components also contributed to higher sales prices.

However, the group’s operating profit fell sharply from R1.16-billion to R453-million.

“These results are reflective of a number of extraordinary external impacts which occurred at a time when we are investing heavily for future growth,” says interim CEO Sjoerd Douwenga.

“Our teams did well to maintain supply to our customers and deliver on our strategic priorities, navigating global supply chain disruptions and raw material shortages, lost production due to the impact of the KwaZulu-Natal floods on our major customer [Toyota], inflationary cost pressures and higher energy costs.

“Looking through the noise, particularly the non-cash impact of hyperinflation accounting for Mutlu [in Türkiye], our underlying business performance remains solid and our prospects are promising, with our strategic investments estimated to deliver R60-billion in revenue over the next decade,” says Douwenga.

The Automotive Components Vertical contributed R7.1-billion in revenue, a 5% increase on the prior year.

The vertical generated operating profit of R45-million, with margins impacted by manufacturing launch inefficiencies and learning curve costs, the payment of premium logistics costs and other once-off model launch project costs.

The South African operations were significantly affected by the loss of production at Toyota. However, Metair’s business interruption insurance claim, capped at R500-million, was successfully finalised.

Production of the group’s major new model investment, the next-generation Ford Ranger, started mid-November, with peak levels expected to be reached from April onwards.

The Energy Storage Vertical faced high inflation fuelled by unprecedented energy and labour cost increases across Türkiye and Romania.

These costs impact margins in the short term, as they are yet to be recovered from customers.

Revenue increased by 14.2% to R8.6-billion, mainly owing to improved volumes, the impact of hyperinflation and higher average lead prices. Operating profit was R195-million.

Metair’s total capital expenditure reached R1.16-billion, in order to facilitate increased capacity ahead of new model launches and vehicle facelifts.

Net debt is at R2.6-billion.

“We are closely managing the group’s financial position with a focus on effective cash management, specifically in the areas of working capital, cost control and capital expenditures, as we support our customers with their requirements and planned investments,” says interim CFO Anesh Jogia.

A new report into ongoing tariff investigations in South Africa indicates that it is taking an average of 22 months to finalise decisions on whether to either increase or remove an import duty, weakening the effectiveness of trade policy to either protect domestic producers or lower costs for consumers.

Compiled by XA Global Trade Advisors, the report states that 90% of the 39 cases that had been lodged with the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (Itac) by December 31 last year were overdue when measured against the six-month timeframe recommended by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) for the resolution of such probes.

CEO Donald MacKay notes that 22 of those cases, representing 56% of all open cases, were overdue by more than 19 months, with two cases more than 43 months overdue.

In one case, an application lodged by Nature’s Garden on June 14, 2018 for a duty increase on mixed frozen vegetables was still not officially resolved, even though Itac initiated the investigation on February 22, 2019.

“It is impossible to manage trade in such a lethargic system. What applied in 2019 is very different to the real-world scenario in 2023 and trade decisions need to be based on the now, not the past,” MacKay asserts.

The report calculates the overall economic cost of these overdue investigations at more than R3-billion, including R1.4-billion that could have been injected should duty relief have been granted on goods not available locally and R1.6-billion in foregone revenue collections had requested duty increases been granted and import volumes remained roughly constant.

In addition, it argued that procedural delays were having a chilling effect on the use of trade instruments by South African companies, with the number of applications falling 62% last year when only eight applications were made compared with 21 in the previous year.

MacKay believes there are various reasons for the backlogs, but raises particular concern over the role that the DTIC’s insistence on ‘reciprocal agreements’ could be playing in extending timeframes.

These agreements arise when government insists that companies make jobs, investment and transformation commitments in return for a duty application being granted.

“These agreements are not transparent, or part of a formal process, nor do companies, in most instances, anticipate them, adding a further layer of complication and uncertainty to those industries applying for relief.

MacKay says the findings of the report have been canvassed with officials at both Itac and the DTIC, who have indicated a willingness to take steps to tackle the backlogs.

The report also makes several recommendations, including introducing a “hard” 12-month maximum time limit for the finalisation of duty decisions, as well as immediately removing duties on all overdue investigations where there is no local supply.

It also argues for a clarification of the respective roles of the Trade, Industry and Competition Minister and the Finance Minister in taking the final decision on a duty.

It also suggests that consideration be given to eliminating reciprocal agreements, or at least having these meet the standards of consistency and transparency.

“What is required is transparency and speed.

“It is critical that the impasse is resolved as quickly as possible, given the current economic realities facing our country, including rising interest rates, the increased cost of food, and the President's urgent need to attract foreign and domestic investment.

“An unpredictable and opaque process is a strong disincentive to investment, and one that the country can ill-afford,” MacKay argues.

In response to questions posed by Engineering News on the report’s findings, Itac said it was unable to comment on the purported delays referred to in the report as it was unclear how the authors arrived at the 22-month average timeframe for finalising applications.

“The commission undertakes tariff investigations...

President Cyril Ramaphosa has described the establishment of a separate Infrastructure Manager (IM) within Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) as a crucial step towards creating a level playing field for public and private operators on the country’s rail network.

In a statement issued following a meeting between Ramaphosa and the Transnet board and executive management convened at the Unions Buildings to discuss the “crisis in South Africa’s logistics system”, the President argued that enabling third-party access to the network was critical for addressing freight rail’s declining performance.

Therefore, he welcomed Transnet’s commitment to establish the IM by October, adding that the initiative would ensure that the network itself remained under State ownership as the system was opened to private participants.

The separation of the infrastructure and operational aspects of the rail business has been likened by TFR CEO Portia Derby to the move under way at Eskom to separate the transmission grid and system operator from generation and distribution so as to level the playing field between Eskom power stations and independent power producers.

It is also in line with the policy direction outlined in the White Paper on National Rail Policy, as well as the reforms being pursued under the aegis of Operation Vulindlela to open the freight logistics system to private operators.

The reforms are seen as particularly urgent in the rail sector, where there has been a serious deterioration in the performance of certain key corridors, including the North Corridor, on which coal exports are railed, the North-East Corridor, which handles chrome, and the Container corridor between Durban and Johannesburg.

The three corridors account for about 50% of TFR's revenue.

A long-running dispute between Transnet and Chinese locomotive supplier CRRC has hit the coal corridor particularly badly, as it has resulted in hundreds of relatively new locomotives being removed from service, owing to CRRC’s refusal to provide TFR with the spares required to allow them to return to operation.

Settlement talks broke down late last year and, while TFR is still hoping for a resolution, the South African rail operator is now also pursuing a replacement original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in parallel to step in and provide spares and maintenance for the long-standing locomotives.

Should a settlement be secured with CRRC, it is estimated that many of the locomotives could be reintroduced to the network within six months. A solution involving a replacement OEM, on the other hand, is likely to take years, as it would involve a re-engineering of the parts and components.

Following the March 28 meeting it was confirmed that Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan would lead a delegation to China in April to meet with his counterparts in the Chinese government as part of efforts to fast-track the delivery of locomotives and spare parts by CRRC.

"A key requirement for CRRC to continue doing business in South Africa, is the normalisation of its relationship with key regulatory authorities – the South African Reserve Bank and the South African Revenue Service. Up to now, the Chinese OEM has declined to do so.

"Minister Gordhan remains hopeful that talks with his Chinese counterparts will yield positive results, in the interest of both State-owned companies and relations between the two countries," a statement issued by Transnet and the Department of Public Enterprises after the meeting read.

Ramaphosa also reaffirmed that “ensuring that sufficient rolling stock is available to increase the volume of goods transported by rail” would form part of the “roadmap for Transnet” that he announced would be developed in his State of the Nation Address.

The other elements to be covered included: upgrading infrastructure in rail and ports, addressing security challenges, and implementing reforms to enable private sector investment.

“There is work underway between the various departments to ...

Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) aims to add 60 locally built electric buses to its fleet in 2024, says GABS company engineer Gideon Neethling.

The Cape Town-based bus operator started testing two electric buses in April, 2021, utilising the 37-seater BYD K9 bus, from China.

In January of this year, the company expanded the testing process to include a Golden Arrow-specification 65-seater BYD electric bus.

The results of these tests have been “very positive”, says Neethling.

“Compared to the current diesel price, we expect the electricity costs to be approximately 70% less than the equivalent diesel costs per kilometre.

“The initial capital outlay may be two or three times the costs of a traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) bus, but this initial capital outlay will be recovered over the life of the vehicle.

“Electric vehicle technology is advancing rapidly – the latest bus has a 200-km range.”

Golden Arrow’s passengers have responded positively to the introduction of the electric vehicles and have voiced their support for the initiative, says Neethling.

Charging the three electric buses currently being tested has not posed any challenges, despite load-shedding intensifying this year, he adds.

“However, as scale is increased, the complexity of the process will also increase significantly.

“But, our scheduling profile provides two significant charging opportunities per day, and we believe that we will be able to address any potential challenges associated with a growing electric fleet.”

GABS is also diversifying its energy feed, and envisages that renewable (especially solar) energy sources will eventually provide a high percentage of the electricity needed to power the buses.

“At present we have installed 1.7 megawatt peak, with plans to continually increase capacity going forward,” says Neethling.

In terms of maintenance, electric vehicles require less maintenance than their ICE counterparts, as they have much fewer moving parts.

“We have trained a core group of artisans who focus on the electric vehicles and have not encountered any issues,” says Neethling.

Driving the vehicles has also not been a problem for GABS’ employees.

“There are no significant adjustments when switching to an electric vehicle,” notes Neethling.

“The regenerative braking functionality improves passenger experience and results in a better unit life for the braking systems.”

Some negatives on the balance sheet are the import duties and ad valorem taxes levied on the 65-seater bus, which add significantly to the cost of the vehicle.

“However, this can be avoided in future by building buses locally,” believes Neethling. “The next step then is to partner with local bus builders to build these buses in South Africa.”

To boost productivity in South Africa, four key business factors need urgent and significant attention, namely increasing energy security, increasing government spending on infrastructure projects, ensuring compliance with local procurement policies and using South Africa’s competitive advantage to the benefit of local businesses, Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel has said.

Speaking at the Proudly South Africa Buy Local Summit on March 27, he admitted that, although “energy has become now the central preoccupation of the country”, energy availability is critical to localisation and to drive industrialisation.

“Our success in assuming a localisation effort is going to be dependent on the speed with which we are able to bring enormous quantities of additional energy into our grid,” said Patel.

The second major obstacle in jobs creation and government contribution to gross domestic product was slow movement in getting major infrastructure projects off the ground – spending on which peaked in 2014.

In this regard, he said a big part of government’s localisation efforts had recently gone into increasing infrastructure spending, which stood to benefit labour-intensive industries such as the steel, construction, chemicals and machinery production companies.

“All of those have been boosted by infrastructure spending.

“Infrastructure spending is a key driver of growth, and of opportunities for locals.

“It has taken time to get the 'ship-of-infrastructure-spending' turned around; but this is an area now where we believe we are able to make significant progress,” said Patel.

The third challenge is procurement policies and a lack of adherence thereto within the State and in the private sector.

“I am pleased to say that, over the last number of years, we have been able to demonstrate that a new procurement strategy by the State is having a positive effect.

“I have opened up a number of factories where those business people have assured me that the logic of them setting up an operation and expanding it is that they now have greater assurance of getting orders from the State,” he stated.

However, Patel said boosting local procurement was an uneven task, “not without its challenges”.

He said slippages in procuring locally made products occurred from time to time, especially with big procurement orders, where sometimes, products were sourced from primarily Asia.

“We have got to be vigilant. You have got to recognise the slippage and deal with [it] as [such incidents] come about,” said Patel.

He added that the private sector experienced a “very significant shift” in attitudes towards procurement.

In terms of competitiveness, Patel pointed out that South Africa had a good standing on the global stage, with many of its locally made products being highly sought-after.

However, he said that to take better advantage of its competitiveness, South African manufacturers needed to find ways of adding or boosting their value add to products, which will serve to further boost competitiveness and lead to customers seeking out South African made products more.

For South Africa to cut greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the transport sector to zero, between 15% to 20% of road traffic must move to rail.

This shift is also key in addressing road congestion, and improving the efficiency of the overall transport system.

However, it will require, as a prerequisite, a fundamental change in the country’s rail system to improve safety, reliability and efficiency.

A move to net-zero will also require around 750 000 electric vehicles (EVs) on South Africa’s roads by 2030, with a complete ban on the sale of new internal combustion engines (ICE) vehicles by 2035.

These are some of the highlights of the latest report to be released as part of a series of publications from the Climate Pathways and Just Transition Project run by the National Business Initiative (NBI), in partnership with Business Unity South Africa and Boston Consulting Group.

The report is called ‘Decarbonising South Africa’s Transport Sector’.

Globally, the transport sector is one of the most significant contributors to GHG emissions, with most transport utilising ICEs, powered by fossil fuels.

Transport is the third largest emitting sector in South Africa, with almost 55-million tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, contributing more than 10% of the country’s national gross emissions.

The NBI report details how the decarbonisation of South Africa’s transport sector can unfold, and covers a suite of levers that must be deployed and trade-offs that must be made in charting a course to net-zero by 2050.

According to the report, fully decarbonising South Africa's transport sector will require four core levers, namely reducing demand through improved spatial planning (reducing travel times and travel distances); shifting to more efficient transport modes (moving from road to rail, increasing the use of public transport); accelerating the adoption of green technology in road transport (using EVs, coupled with the decarbonisation of the national grid); and greening the remaining fossil fuels left in the car parc and aviation and shipping industries through low-carbon fuels.

Achieving these objectives will not be easy, and “will require integrated policy support, coordinated infrastructure investments and collaboration amongst all key stakeholders,” notes the report.

“Without a deliberate and coordinated local effort, South Africa’s transport sector will be on a trajectory that is inconsistent with South Africa’s climate commitments or Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement by 2030, and inconsistent with net-zero by 2050.”

The report notes that “immediate next steps and no-regret actions” in South Africa’s decarbonising journey include reducing the import tariffs on EVs, and, therefore, growing the adoption rate among consumers; investing in revitalising rail infrastructure; and improving governance within rail and port management.

The report adds that the South Africa transport sector not only faces the challenge of decarbonising, but also one of improving the quality and effectiveness of its operations.

Engineering News editor Terence Creamer discusses the latest milestone achieved in the replacement of steam generators at the Koeberg nuclear power station; the snags that have delayed the project; what this means for Eskom's Koeberg life extension plan; the cost of the project; and if Eskom will be able to secure a new licence for the power station.

The economic and financial benefits to South African municipalities of buying electricity from independent power producers (IPPs), as well as commercial and residential prosumers has turned overwhelmingly positive and should be pursued with enthusiasm, the chairperson of the South African Independent Power Producer Association argues.

In fact, Thomas Garner states that, in the context of ongoing loadshedding, a municipality’s electricity-related finances could be significantly bolstered if it were to diversify its sources of supply beyond Eskom and, in so doing, reduce revenue-sapping rotational cuts and stimulate rates-generating economic activity.

Speaking at a Gordon Institute of Business Science conference in Johannesburg, Garner argued that an embracing of prosumers and IPPs by municipalities could have an impact at least equal to the recent so-called embedded-generation reform; one which enabled IPPs to develop projects of any size and to sell the electricity produced to third parties by wheeling power through Eskom or municipal networks.

Since the initial reform was announced on August 2021, more than 540 projects, with a combined capacity of nearly 3 GW, have been registered with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa. Momentum has increase further with the recent decision to eliminate the 100 MW cap on such generators and the pipeline of projects at various stages of development has since risen to 9 GW.

Garner said that companies that had embraced the reform – which still involved significant bureaucracy and was governed by strict grid-code regulations – were already making savings of between 10% and 40% relative to what they would have been paying to Eskom. In addition, the State-owned utility – which had belatedly started to support IPPs and allowed for wheeling – was being “made whole” by the fact that customers and the IPPs were paying the utility for the use of the grid.

There was more reticence at a local government level, however, where Garner argued that many municipalities and their utilities had adopted a defensive posture with regard to both IPPs and prosumers. This, despite the fact that their reliance on Eskom was undermining their revenues as they had no way to mitigate against loadshedding. Municipalities currently account for about 40% of Eskom’s sales.

“Municipalities have done this without doing the math or looking at the economics,” Garner asserted.

Using Johannesburg as a case study, Garner calculated that a total of 8 000 GWh of electricity was being consumed in the city yearly, translating to a revenue for City Power of about R20-billion, with about R14-billion of that used to pay Eskom and the rest to operate its network.

He estimated, too, that City Power was generating a revenue surplus of about 70c/kWh over and above what it paid to Eskom. That surplus could be generated, however, only when City Power was able to resell electricity and its sales had been falling as a result of loadshedding, non-technical losses (theft or poor billing and collection) and the installation of rooftop solar systems by businesses and households seeking to mitigate power disruptions and rising tariffs.

There is estimated to be some 250 MW of rooftop solar installed in Johannesburg, with about one-quarter of that actually registered with the city. Therefore, about 5%, or 400 GWh, of the electricity consumed yearly in the city is being produced by rooftop solar generators, leading to a revenue loss to City Power of about R200-million.

That R200-million loss is dwarfed, however, by the direct revenue loss arising from loadshedding, which is currently estimated at 15%, or 1 200 GWh, a year, equating to R630-million in losses on the energy component of the City Power tariff alone. Using a cost of unserved energy of R17/kWh, Garner calculated the economic loss to Johannesburg to be R20-billion, or equivalent to City Power’s yearly revenue.

In addition, City Power is losing about 21% as a result of non-technical...