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Independent power producer and licensed trader NOA has amplified a recent call for the publication of a Cabinet-endorsed electricity reform roadmap to ensure that the shift to the competitive market structure envisaged in legislation and policy is implemented.

NOA head of trading Andrew Taylor argued this week that the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act and the impending launch of the South African Electricity Wholesale Market (SAWEM) offered a credible path to a competitive, green and affordable electricity system, but currently lacked an authoritative, coherent and sequenced implementation plan.

"Cabinet should adopt a single, time-bound electricity reform roadmap before the end of the 2026 medium-term budget cycle," Taylor argued during an EE Business Intelligence webinar.

This appeal was also made in February by the South African Electricity Traders Association (SAETA), of which NOA is a member.

In a report commission by SAETA and produced by research and consulting firm Krutham, it was argued that the roadmap should bring together existing reform strands, while setting clear targets, sequencing and accountability.

In an update released on May 12, Krutham noted that the Department of Electricity and Energy planned to submit the report to Cabinet which would then go through a public consultation process.

In April, Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa revealed that the electricity reform policy paper would offer a "single-window overview of the sector's reform agenda".

In his subsequent Budget Vote speech, he announced that his department would also release a "sequenced" implementation roadmap for the SAWEM so as to address prevailing uncertainty over the transition to a competitive market structure.

Krutham MD Peter Attard Montalto added that South Africa had a narrow window to lock in reform and that the roadmap, thus, represented the "most important document the sector will see this year".

"Without Cabinet approval and a single political champion, reforms remain weakly coordinated, vulnerable to resistance and unable to overcome entrenched interests," Attard Montalto added, highlighting the relative progress being made in transport reform where a Cabinet-endorsed roadmap was in place.

Taylor also argued that the roadmap should have a single political champion, assign lead responsibilities for each outstanding workstream, and that there should be quarterly progress reports.

The roadmap, he added, should not be a new policy, but a "faithful translation of the policy already passed — sequenced, costed, and owned".

Besides the roadmap, Taylor also identified two other non-technical interventions that should be pursued with similar urgency: a new Electricity Pricing Policy, for which Ramokgopa has confirmed he will also be seeking Cabinet approval; and a strengthening of the capacity of the Department of Electricity and Energy and the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.

"Each of these three actions is unglamorous. None of them generates a megawatt. None of them opens a substation. And yet, without them, every megawatt and every substation is more expensive, slower to build, and more vulnerable to the next political shock," Taylor said.

Speaking on the same platform, Saul Musker, who is director of strategy and delivery support in the Office of the Presidency, listed several reform priorities in addition to the work being undertaken by the Eskom Restructuring Task Team to finalise the establishment of a fully independent Transmission System Operator with ownership and control of the transmission assets.

These included finalising trading rules, as well as systems and prices to enable a competitive market; reforming the tariff regime to support the introduction of the SAWEM and sector unbundling; implementing open and non-discriminatory access to the grid and wheeling; expanding and strengthening the transmission network; and supporting municipal distributors to make the transition to a reformed el...

The 11 private train operating companies (TOCs), which were last year allocated slots on South Africa's mainline rail network, have now officially concluded rail access agreements with the Transnet Rail Infrastructure Manager (TRIM) and are gearing up to begin operations.

At a ceremony in Sandton on May 13, TRIM confirmed that the TOCs were expected to inject an additional 24-million tonnes of freight capacity across the coal, manganese, container, fuel, and general freight segments.

The initial TOCs to have received allocations were also confirmed as being ARC South Africa, Barberry, Grindrod, Interlinks, IRACEMA, Menar, Minrail, Motheo Logistics, Sharp Logistics, The Railway Corporation and TLD Marine, which includes MSC as a participant.

Some TOCs were targeting to begin operations before the end of 2026, and TRIM said the majority were expected to be operational during the course of 2027.

Transnet CEO Michelle Phillips described the conclusion of the rail access agreements as a "significant milestone" and said it was also evidence that Transnet was implementing the policy reform of having an open-access rail system.

The network has hitherto been monopolised by Transnet Freight Rail, and the entry of private operators has been facilitated by the vertical separation of rail operations from infrastructure and the launch of TRIM, which marked its first anniversary in April.

TRIM subsequently published Network Statement Version 3, which laid the basis for the allocation of slots to TOCs, including the rail access fees.

TRIM CEO Moshe Motlohi reiterated that the TOCs would enter at their own risk a network that had been neglected, but also outlined various initiatives being undertaken to improve the state of the network and signalling.

Transnet was also increasingly accessing the National Treasury's Budget Facility for Infrastructure to fund capital projects on the rail system, with Transport Minister Barbara Creecy having stated that R16.8-billion in public investment had already been approved for the coal, iron-ore and port networks and that further applications worth R23.6-billion were being prepared.

Network Statement Version 4, which includes refinements to the slot allocation system, was currently being finalised and would be released by the Department of Transport in the coming days in a bid to pave the way for the allocation of yet more rail slots to private operators.

The statement will be updated either yearly or every two years in an effort to progressively open the network to TOCs in line with a goal of having private operators contribute to government's target of raising freight rail volumes to 250-million tons by 2030, from below 180-million tons currently.

"This milestone represents more than just slot allocation, it signals the creation of a functional and competitive rail marketplace," Motlohi said.

He also confirmed that TRIM had introduced an 'Ad Hoc Slot' application platform to allocate additional rail capacity outside the annual cycle.

Describing the mechanism as "innovative and rules-based", Motlohi reported that the ad hoc process had already unlocked new opportunities, including a proposed short-haul service between Cato Ridge and Durban aimed at reducing road congestion in the port precinct.

He said the service is targeted to commence operations in May 2026.

Transnet also provided an update on its initiative to establish a rolling stock leasing company, which would enable private operators to lease the locomotives and wagons needed to operate the route instead of making large upfront capital investments.

The so-called LeaseCo would be set up as a public-private partnership and Transnet confirmed that a request for proposals would be released imminently to bidders that had been identified during a prequalification process.

However, Transnet chief business development officer Yolisa Kani said that, owing to market demand, the State-owned company had already allocated assets to the entity and had conclu...

Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa reports that his department will publish a "sequenced" implementation roadmap for the South African Wholesale Electricity Market (SAWEM) so as to address prevailing uncertainty over the transition to a competitive market structure.

In his Budget Vote address on Tuesday, the Minister said the SAWEM would introduce clearer price signals, improve dispatch efficiency, allocate balancing responsibilities, improve transparency and reduce long-term reliance on the single buyer model.

However, he said the market should be "sequenced with sensitivity" and announced that the Department of Electricity and Energy was finalising a SAWEM implementation roadmap, without providing a timeframe for its launch.

The target launch date of April 1 for the SAWEM itself was not met, and is currently scheduled for the third quarter of the year, with the regulator still to deliberate on the market code.

"The roadmap will set out regulatory milestone, readiness, gates, governance, controls, pricing, alignment, vesting and settlement arrangements and the transition towards the Transmission System Operator (TSO).

"The market will not be built on uncertainty. It will be built on rules, oversight and readiness and public interest," Ramokgopa averred.

He also reaffirmed the central role of the State in the future market design, arguing that it did not represent a "retreat" but rather transforming the electricity market so that the State could "govern a more complex system with better instruments".

"The State will therefore continue to plan, it will continue to regulate, it will continue to protect the poor, it will continue to ensure that system security is not compromised [and] it will continue to act to ensure that the market design must serve national development objectives."

His address comes amid greater electricity supply stability with South Africa expecting to achieve 365 days without loadshedding on May 18.

Nevertheless, a number of market reforms remain outstanding, including the creation of an independent State-owned TSO that owns and controls the transmission assets that have hitherto been held by Eskom and which currently fall under the National Transmission Company South Africa, which is a wholly-owned Eskom subsidiary.

Speaking separately Saul Musker, who is director of strategy and delivery support in the Office of the Presidency, said the Eskom Restructuring Task Team established by President Cyril Ramaphosa following his State of the Nation Address was "very hard at work to establish a fully independent TSO with ownership and control of transmission assets and to remove conflicts of interest".

Musker also listed several other reform priorities during an EE Business Intelligence webinar that took place ahead of the Budget Vote, including: finalising trading rules, systems and prices to enable a competitive market; reforming the tariff regime to support the introduction of the market and sector unbundling; expanding and strengthening the transmission network; and supporting municipal distributors to make the transition to a reformed electricity sector.

DISTRIBUTION ROADMAP & PRICING POLICY

In his address, Ramokgopa confirmed that distribution sector transformation and the electricity pricing policy would receive urgent attention during the current financial year.

He said the department planned to publish an electricity distribution industry roadmap and was processing changes to the electricity pricing policy, which would be taken to Cabinet for approval before being released for public consultation.

"This process will provide a revised framework for tariff setting, cost reflectivity, wholesale pricing, use-of-system charges, time-of-use pricing, subsidy separation, municipal cost-of-supply enforcement and social protection."

Other areas of focus of the 2026/27 financial year included stress-testing the Integrated Resource Plan assumptions against actual supply and demand conditions t...

Amid rising fuel prices and dropping temperatures in South Africa, Engineering News editor Terence Creamer joins me to discuss what issues these developments raise for the energy transition and policy.

The growing arrival of Chinese competition in the South African auto industry is not a concern, as competition in itself is not a problem, says WesBank senior economist Thanda Sithole.

"Increased competition can be healthy. It can improve affordability, raise product quality, expand consumer choice and force incumbents to adapt.

"In an economy where many consumers have been priced out of major purchases, lower-cost mobility solutions are not trivial. They matter," says Sithole.

The real concern, however, is whether South Africa's domestic automotive base is sufficiently competitive to absorb this market shift without a meaningful erosion in local industrial capacity, he notes.

"That question matters, because South Africa is competing in a global automotive environment that is changing rapidly.

"Chinese manufacturers have become formidable competitors, not only because of price, but because of scale, supply chain integration, technological capability and speed to market.

"In several segments, they are no longer merely low-cost alternatives, they are increasingly credible mainstream contenders."

If this competitive pressure accelerates faster than local producers can adapt, the risk is not simply lower margins, says Sithole.

It is a gradual weakening of domestic productive capacity, reduced model relevance, shrinking local value-add and, ultimately, pressure on investment and employment over time.

This then raises the policy question – should South Africa respond with higher import duties on these Chinese imports or other trade restrictions to limit the influx, asks Sithole.

"At first glance, the case for intervention appears straightforward.

"If lower-cost imports are placing local [vehicle manufacturers] under pressure, tariffs may seem like a reasonable way to level the playing field and buy domestic producers time to adjust.

"For a country trying to preserve industrial jobs and protect its manufacturing base, that instinct is understandable."

But import duties are a blunt instrument, warns Sithole, and blunt instruments often create as many problems as they solve.

"Higher duties may offer temporary relief to domestic producers, but they would also raise costs for consumers, particularly lower- and middle-income households already facing strained affordability.

"They could reduce competitive discipline in the market, shield structural inefficiencies and delay the very adaptation that the industry ultimately needs.

"In the absence of broader competitiveness reforms, tariffs risk becoming a defensive policy response rather than a strategic one."

There is also the question of whether tariffs would address the root causes of the problem, notes Sithole.

"South Africa's automotive competitiveness is not determined by pricing alone. It is shaped by a broader set of structural constraints such as logistics inefficiencies, port bottlenecks, electricity insecurity (though this seems to have improved recently), input costs, localisation challenges and the general cost of doing business. These are not issues that can be solved at the border."

In that sense, the rise of Chinese imports is less a problem in itself than a symptom of a larger challenge.

"South Africa's domestic industry is being exposed to a more demanding and more competitive global market, and policy can no longer rely on inertia," says Sithole.

A more credible policy approach by government, rather than blanket protectionism, would be one that preserves the consumer benefits of competition, while strengthening the domestic industry's ability to compete.

That includes reassessing whether existing industrial support frameworks remain fit for purpose, deepening localisation where economically viable, improving infrastructure and logistics performance, and ensuring the domestic sector is positioned for future product and technology shifts, including the gradual transition in vehicle platforms and propulsion systems, explains Sithole.

"In other words, the right question is n...

A newly formed government agency set up to mobilise private sector participation in public infrastructure has concluded a cooperation agreement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in a bid to unlock investments in water, sanitation and waste management projects, especially at the municipal level.

Established in March, the Infrastructure Finance and Implementation Support Agency (IFISA) has consolidated the Public-Private Partnerships and the Capital Projects Appraisal Units of the Government Technical Advisory Centre, the Neighbourhood Development Partnership Programme of the National Treasury (NT) and the Infrastructure Fund - which was established by a memorandum of agreement between the Development Bank of Southern Africa, NT, and the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, operating as a ring-fenced unit within the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Acting head Mohale Rakgate tells Engineering News that because IFISA is a consolidation of pre-existing entities, it has an established pipeline of infrastructure projects across various sectors, including projects that have already been approved to receive more than R50-billion from the fiscus under the Budget Facility for Infrastructure.

However, the pipeline of projects deemed "bankable" for private sector participation is currently limited and the agreement with the IFC is designed to enhance the project preparation process, with an initial focus on water, sanitation and waste management projects.

A pipeline of 13 such projects with an estimated combined capital cost of about R40-billion has been identified by IFISA, including the uMkhomazi Water Project Phase 1 Raw Water project, in KwaZulu-Natal.

The IFC, with support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, is already collaborating with IFISA to review key aspects of the project, where the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority is the implementing agent, and Rakgate expressed optimism that it would be advanced to bankability in the not too distant future.

IFC Regional Director for Southern Africa Cláudia Conceição says the cooperation agreement will enable IFISA and IFC to strengthen project preparation, improve bankability, and accelerate the delivery of high-impact infrastructure through blended finance, public-private partnerships and other financing structures.

IFISA will focus on project origination, coordination and implementation support within the public sector, while the IFC will play a key role in enhancing the technical and financial readiness of projects.

Besides project preparation, Conceição also underlines the importance of good governance, arguing that when governance is in place, private capital typically follows, as it offers investors the certainty they need and helps to derisk projects.

On how the services arising from projects involving the private sector will be paid for and kept affordable, Rakgate says that, while the 'user pays' principle will apply, IFISA will draw on various instruments, including direct fiscal support, to ensure affordability.

Conceição adds that the broader World Bank Group has several mechanisms, including guarantee schemes, to help lower the cost of capital to public infrastructure projects.

Rakgate says the initial focus of its cooperation with the IFC will be on the areas of water and sanitation, owing to the stresses being experienced in the sector, and that fact that more than 50% of IFISA's work to date has been focused on the water sector. However, it could be expanded to other infrastructure sectors in future.

"By combining our efforts, we believe we can better prepare and deliver projects that address this critical service delivery need, while attracting private sector investment at scale," he adds.

Cape Town's Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) has deployed 120 electric buses since January this year, traveling a combined 115 000 km to 120 000 km a week.

"At this rate we should get close to six-million kilometres with our electric buses during the calendar year 2026," says GABS company engineer Gideon Neethling.

He adds that the solar-boosted charging system installed at the public transport operator's Arrowgate depot, in Cape Town, is working as designed, and "meeting our requirements comfortably".

"With Cape Town's rainy winters we unfortunately have less solar electricity available, and we have to use more electricity from the City of Cape Town," he notes.

"We are, however, busy with a feasibility study to increase the solar capacity at our depot.

"We are also in discussions with an independent power producer to complete a feasibility study to buy renewable electricity from them via a wheeling agreement."

Cost Savers? With 120 electric buses in a fleet of more than 1 200 buses, it is feasible to imagine that GABS must be saving a considerable amount of money when considering the sharp spike in fuel prices in recent months owing to the conflict in the Middle East.

"We are cautious to use short-term diesel costs to calculate savings," says Neethling.

"But, we support the view that this spike in oil and diesel prices highlights the fact that electrifying your fleet should be part of your risk management strategy.

"It should also add focus to the fact that we should localise energy production in South Africa as we move towards electric vehicles, and reduce the money leaving the country to purchase oil or diesel."

Neethling adds that GABS unfortunately does not have sufficient electric buses in its fleet to stave off ticket price increases owing to the Iran crisis.

"Our electric buses represent 10% of the kilometres that we travel, which will unfortunately not be able to stop a price increase, but it will help to soften the blow a bit."

Neethling adds that GABS has not yet taken an official decision on whether it will add more electric units to its bus fleet this year.

"The Iran crisis will, however, definitely play a big role in our decision process, and will probably support future decisions to buy additional electric buses."

GABS's first electric buses are from Chinese giant BYD, with the company currently in the early days of testing buses from a second supplier.

The BYD people carriers are B12 buses, with similar specifications to the bulk of the current Golden Arrow fleet.

The 12.5-m-long, 65-seater electric buses are equipped with lithium-iron-phosphate batteries and have a range of just more than 200 km.

South Africa's utility scale renewables and battery storage market is poised for a record year of installations, a new research note produced by the Power Futures Lab at the UCT Graduate School of Business shows.

Authors Dr Olakunle Alao and Dr Wikus Kruger state that eight projects with a combined capacity of 1 932 MW had already advanced to financial close by April 30, while a further 26 projects, representing 3 320 MW, are poised to achieve that milestone by year-end.

"If the full 2026 pipeline closes as expected, the year would total 34 financial closures representing about 5 252 MW of new renewable energy capacity – the highest single-year volume in South Africa's history, surpassing the 3 562 MW recorded across 35 closures in 2024," Alao and Kruger state.

They caution that realising the full pipeline in a single calendar year is ambitious, but argue that even a partial conversion would make 2026 exceptional by historical standards.

The majority of the projects moving towards construction are associated with public procurement processes, including bid windows six and seven of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP), and bid window two of the Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (BESIPPPP).

However, South Africa's rapidly expanding private commercial and industrial (C&I) market also features strongly, with trader-intermediated offtake emerging as a key theme.

RISE OF TRADERS

"A defining feature of the 2026 deal flow is the role of licensed electricity traders as the intermediary between independent power producers (IPPs) and corporate electricity users.

"Where C&I procurement was initially organised around bilateral power purchase agreements between developer and end-user, the largest 2026 C&I transactions are now being aggregated through traders with diversified customer portfolios and dedicated trading licences from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa)."

Of the six confirmed C&I closures, five are trader-intermediated, accounting for 1 219 MW, or about 80% of the 1 519 MW of confirmed C&I capacity.

The projects include Anthem's 475 MW Notsi project, where the offtakers are NOA and Discovery Green; Mulilo's 380 MW Beaufort West project where NOA is the offtaker; Mulilo's 219 MW Orkney project, with Etana Energy as the offtaker; the 255 MW Thakadu project, which is being developed by Lyra Energy, a partnership of Scatec, Standard Bank and Stanlib; and the 25 MW Parsons PV project, where PowerX is the offtaker.

The fourth project is SOLA's 300 MW Naos 1 PV plant, which is paired with 660 MWh of battery storage, and which is underpinned by a direct bilateral offtake arrangement with Sasol and Air Liquide.

Besides the rise of traders, the authors argue that the market is displaying evidence of a structural rather than a cyclical recovery, which they attribute to the policy continuity that emerged following the uncertainty created between 2015 and 2018 when Eskom placed a moratorium on buying electricity from IPPs.

The authors also conclude that the public procurement channel remains a significant driver, despite prevailing uncertainty about the future of the REIPPPP.

"A striking feature of the data is the continued weight of the public procurement programmes . . . Amid growing scepticism about REIPPPP's continued role given the expanding C&I pipeline, the evidence here underlines that the programme remains decisive for the country – both as a volume driver and as the benchmark against which private-market tariffs are priced."

The note highlights that Mulilo's 337 MW Middlepunt PV project, selected during REIPPPP Bid Window 7, achieved the lowest tariff awarded under the programme to date of US$c 2.7/kWh.

The 2026 deal flow (confirmed and pipeline) splits almost six to four in favour of the public procurement programmes, with REIPPPP Bid Windows 6 and 7 together with BESIPPPP Bid Window 2 accounting for an estimated 3 112 MW across 2...

The National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at unlocking industrial financing to NTCSA-verified suppliers and contractors involved in the expansion of South Africa's electricity transmission network.

In a joint statement, the two State-owned entities indicated that they would seek to use the funding to stimulate supplier development, localisation and industrialisation, with a particular focus on commodities such as transformers, insulators, hardware, transmission steel, conductors, and broader grid infrastructure construction.

"Through this partnership, the NTCSA will increase supplier development, localisation and demand visibility, while the IDC will, subject to its governance and due diligence processes, consider appropriate funding support for qualifying suppliers, including working capital and capital investment to expand production capacity," the statement reads.

The Transmission Development Plan (TDP) envisages the construction of 14 500 km of new powerlines and 133 000 MVA of additional transformers by 2034 at a cost of about R440-billion.

The roll-out will unlock some 37 GW of generation capacity, including in provinces where the grid is a constraint to the integration of new wind and solar capacity, such as the Eastern, Northern and Western Cape.

The expansion will be implemented by the NTCSA itself, as well as private Independent Transmission Projects, or ITPs.

The pace of the TDP roll-out has been heavily criticised by private generators aiming to connect their projects to the grid, with the NTCSA confirming recently that only 270.8 km of transmission lines were constructed in its 2025/26 financial year against a target of 423 km.

It attributed the deficit largely to contractor financial constraints and underperformance on several projects.

Broader efforts to facilitate localisation, industrialisation and supplier development have also been criticised by domestic manufacturers and contractors, which believe bidding requirements have been tailored for international suppliers, especially those linked to the initial ITP procurement round.

The NTCSA has stated that a "step-change" in industry capacity is needed to deliver at the required yearly build-out rate, which is expected to peak at 2 183 km in the latter part of the TDP deployment period so as to offset the slow pace of construction in the early years of implementation.

The target for the current financial year is to construct 550 km of transmission lines and commission 7 000 MVA of transformer capacity, and the NTCSA has initiated an incubator programme to support the emergence of entities able to construct new lines and has also pre-qualified transformer and steel suppliers.

However, it has also warned of several capacity gaps, highlighting in particular steel fabrication pressures, a lack of manufacturing capacity to produce large transformers, and limited contractor capacity.

NTCSA CEO Monde Bala said the TDP would create substantial demand for manufactured inputs and components, and argued that the scale of the expansion required a strong, reliable local supply base.

"This agreement is designed to support verified suppliers identified by the NTCSA through its procurement processes and equip them with the technical expertise and potential financial backing from the IDC to build sustainable capacity for delivering on the TDP projects.

"It will also strengthen supplier development, localisation and industrialisation," Bala added.

IDC CEO Mmakgoshi Lekhethe said the development financier stood ready to fund viable entities selected to be part of the grid network expansion programme over the coming 72 months.

Implementation would be driven through a joint steering committee to fast-track agreed workstreams, track progress and address constraints.

"Further details on funding opportunities, including qualifying criteria and access processes, will be commu...

South African development finance institution (DFI) the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting black-owned and black-controlled enterprises, on the back of public reports of allegations of anti-transformation practices and governance concerns.

This follows media reports that the IDC's lending practices have come under scrutiny, as several black-owned companies are facing liquidation over loan repayments.

Black-owned enterprises currently account for about 60% of the IDC's funding portfolio, the institution pointed out during an April 30 media briefing.

While the IDC has acknowledged concerns raised by some entrepreneurs and business formations, it cautioned against generalising individual cases or characterising all distressed outcomes as evidence of institutional bias or anti-transformation conduct.

Speaking at the media briefing IDC CEO Mmakgoshi Lekhethe said the institution has, to date, supported 73 companies through its partnership with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition's (dtic's) Black Industrialists Scheme, with total funding of about R7.28-billion approved in support of these enterprises.

She noted, however, that the challenging macroeconomic environment has placed strain on many businesses across the economy, including those supported by the IDC.

During the past financial year, the IDC approved about R2-billion in funding specifically to support distressed businesses.

Addressing governance-related allegations, Lekhethe reaffirmed the IDC's commitment to ethical conduct and accountability.

IDC chairperson Gloria Serobe added that the board is cognisant of the seriousness of the issues being raised publicly and would engage with this properly.

Meanwhile, the institution is also repositioning how it operates, Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau said during the briefing.

"The IDC's role is evolving from being a traditional direct lender towards becoming a platform for industrial ecosystem development, mobilising capital, partners and capability to unlock high-impact sectors and rebuild South Africa's industrial base," he informed.

Tua explained that this new IDC mandate is informed by government policy and creating enablers, including infrastructure investment, special economic zones and industrial parks, as well as trade and industrial finance instruments and regulatory reform, while improving the ease of doing business.

"In fulfilling this policy and programmatic mandate, public and private partnerships are very important to collectively grow our economy at a rapid pace so we can effectively address the stubborn trifecta of poverty, unemployment and inequality," he stressed.

To deliver this, the IDC is working to mobilise partners to allow co-investment across value chains and broadening the institution's reach through intermediaries.

Within a partnership-centred model, the IDC would act as a primary financing partner for structural reforms in network industries.

The partnership model would focus on five strategic streams, namely, public sector and State-owned enterprise co-investments in energy, freight rail and water; multilateral and bilateral DFI collaboration for blended finance and technical assistance; academic and innovation ecosystems to commercialise research and development; channel and intermediary partners to reach small- and medium-sized enterprises and rural businesses; and private sector consortia for technology transfer and market access, he outlined.

Tau also mentioned that this developmental and transformational path requires an appropriate governance structure. "It is for this reason we have appointed a capable board, comprising of experienced professionals drawn from the legal, finance, energy, mining and engineering sectors," he averred.

He pointed out that, over the past seven months, the board has progressed in moving the IDC beyond its traditional lending model and ensuring that it becomes a platform to deploy capit...