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The value of project-oriented economic activity over the next decade is likely to reach $20-trillion, says nonprofit organisation Project Management Institute (PMI).

The company’s ‘Talent Gap’ report predicts that the number of jobs requiring project management-oriented skills, from economic growth to retirement rates, will create the global need for 25-million new project professionals by 2030.

This, MD for Europe and sub-Saharan Africa Ashwini Bakshi explains, means that 2.3-million project managers will need to fill project management-oriented roles every year to keep up with demand. However, the shortage of talent may pose a considerable risk to organisations as they rely on project teams to implement strategic initiatives on time and on budget.

While this will be a “big challenge”, PMI does not believe it is impossible.

“[Training] two-and-a-half-million project managers globally isn’t a small task. But we think we can make a significant impact by starting early, like at university level,” Bakshi says.

PMI, in this case, offers certification and training for people at university level so that they enter the workforce “already speaking the language of project management”. The company also provides classical and more rigorous certification and training for project management professionals.

“We also feel that the nature of work in the modern organisation requires everybody to speak the language of project management, we call them accidental project managers, so you don't have to have the word project in your title to be doing project work or to acquire project management skills,” Bakshi tells Engineering News.

As such, even someone in accounting or human resources will be able to take PMI’s course, which Bakshi says will allow them to “get the basics of classical project management”.

PMI believes it will be a combination of these flexible and diverse methodologies that will aid the speed with which project management capability develops in Africa and globally.

During this decade, sub-Saharan Africa will witness a 40% growth in project management-oriented employment opportunities. To take advantage of the new project economy, in part fueled by global commitments and efforts to spur economic growth, companies will need a new approach to project management.

However, research done by PMI has shown that a large and complex project’s success is often determined at the setup stage, owing to the project’s inherent complexity and scale.

Currently, about 65% of projects undertaken worldwide are unsuccessful.

Locally, in South Africa, Bakshi says complex projects in energy, mining and infrastructure for example will benefit from skills development in the project management space.

South Africa recently walked away with commitments of about $8.5-billion in financing at the recent COP26 Summit, to help the country install more clean energy, while accelerating the country’s transition away from coal power and to cushion the blow for workers who may be affected by the shift.

While South Africa, which relies heavily on coal, has pledged to reduce its overall carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions between now and 2030 as part of global efforts to tackle climate change, Bakshi says the country “faces enormous obstacles in doing so”.

In conversation with Engineering News, Bakshi explains that to mitigate these challenges, organisational agility needs to be built into these projects.

“We’re talking about specific adaptability scales or complex problem-solving skills or being able to choose your way of working depending on what is unfolding in your project. This means that you need, at minimum, a front-loading set of conditions which set you up for success, but you also need to build an enterprise agility during the course of the project, which lets you adapt and react quickly,” he elaborates.

Because projects globally all face some kind of obstacles in the delivery process, “project management skills will be in demand especially over the next decade ...

State-owned electricity utility Eskom expects to cut its full-year loss to R9.1-billion in 2021/22, from R18.9-billion in 2020/21, but warns that its debt position remains unsustainable despite some positive financial momentum during the six months to September 30, including a reduction in its overall debt to R392-billion.

CEO André de Ruyter reported on Thursday that Eskom made a R9.2-billion profit during the first half of its financial year, on the back of higher tariffs (15.06%) and sales volumes (8%) and reduced costs (R20-billion in savings targeted).

However, that profit will be more than wiped out during the second half, when the utility traditionally has lower sales, lower industrial tariffs and higher costs, as it ramps up its summer maintenance programme.

The utility will also face lower revenue as a result of an intensification of load-shedding during the initial months of the second half of the year, as well as higher diesel costs, as it resorts increasingly to using its open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) to keep the lights on.

CFO Calib Cassim reported that Eskom anticipated that it would spend of R16.1-billion on OCGTs for the full year, which would contribute significantly to the expected loss.

In addition, gross debt was forecast to increase to R416.4-billion by the end of March, from R401.8-billion in March 2021, largely due to funding being postponed from the prior year.

Therefore, the utility would continue to rely on government injections to sustain its going-concern status, with R21.9-billion required for 2022/23 and R21-billion for 2023/24.

Government support of R31.7-billion was received in the interim period, during which Eskom paid R40-billion to service its debt, divided between debt repayments of R24-billion and interest payments of R16-billion.

The utility faced debt servicing costs of R71-billion for 2021/22 as a whole, which would reduce to a yearly average of about R60-billion to 2024/25.

De Ruyter said the debt stock on Eskom’s balance sheet had to be addressed through a structural solution to ensure that the utility, and its unbundled divisions of generation, transmission and distribution, were no longer dependent on ongoing fiscal support.

He said Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana had been “fully appraised of the challenge” and had instructed his officials to continue engaging with Eskom on “finding a solution”.

Priority would also be given in the coming six months to finding a solution to Eskom’s municipal arrear debt, which surged by R5.6-billion (15.8%) to R40.9-billion in the interim period, while Soweto-related debt fell marginally to R6.9-billion.

NATIONAL TRANSMISSION COMPANY OF SOUTH AFRICA

De Ruyter also used the presentation to report progress on the legal separation of Eskom, with the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) having been incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary during the interim period.

The NTCSA Is expected to become operational during the 2022 calendar year and once the National Energy Regulatory of South Africa granted the new entity a licence and lender consent had been secured.

An asset transfer agreement was being prepared for signature by December 31, with Public Finance Management Act approval having been secured from the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) and National Treasury approval expected soon.

The separation of the generation and distribution units would be completed by December 31, 2022.

The debt profile of the three entities was still to be finalised, but Cassim confirmed that the generation entity would hold the bulk of the debt, which would still be consolidated under the holding company.

“Measures are in place to start trading between NTCSA and the generation and distribution divisions,” De Ruyter reported, adding that the new entity would also become responsible for trading agreements within the Southern African Power Pool.

ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE?

De Ruyter also confirmed that Eskom had been granted permission to appeal the...

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has announced that Eskom is preparing to release land in the coal-rich Mpumalanga province for sub-100 MW distributed electricity projects that can now be built without a licence and wheel electricity through the grid for self-consumption, or for sale to third-party consumers.

Speaking during the State-owned utility’s interim results presentation, Gordhan said that Eskom owned about 36 000 ha of unutilised land in Mpumalanga, including in and around eMalahleni, which had also been designated as a Renewable Energy Development Zone.

Eskom intends initiating an auction process to release the land, mostly on the basis of 20-year lease agreements, for renewable electricity generation by independent power producers.

The land release is intended to offer private generators immediate relief from the prevailing grid constraints and provide Eskom with more time to build new infrastructure to open up those areas of the country with the best wind and solar resources, including the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape provinces.

It is also designed to offer another platform to begin closing a 4 000 MW to 6 000 MW generation shortfall, which has made South Africa prone to load-shedding and left Eskom with little space to implement much-needed maintenance on its aged and increasingly unreliable coal fleet.

“The bidding criteria will favour generators for size and speed of delivery – thus quickest delivery of the most megawatts to the grid in order to help relieve the constraints on the power system,” Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said.

“The leasing of land would have to be made subject to production being achieved by a contracted date,” he added, noting that it would take about 18 to 24 months from the conclusion of agreements for new capacity to be introduced.

Eskom intended expediting applications for use of its transmission infrastructure and connect the distributed plants to the nearest network connection point.

Gordhan reported that Eskom was also finalising a wheeling tariff to offer potential investors greater certainty on the cost of wheeling electricity across the Eskom network.

He also linked the intervention, which had been facilitated by a recent amendment to Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act of 2006, to the country’s emerging just energy transition (JET) strategy for supporting coal workers and communities that will be negatively affected by the closure of mines and power stations.

Eskom’s flagship JET projects would take place in and around the Komati coal-fired power station, which is scheduled for full and final closure during the course of 2022.

During the recent COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow, Scotland, South Africa received an offer of $8.9-billion from France, Germany, the UK, the US and the European Union to support its just energy transition.

The lion’s share of the offer, which still needs to be converted into either grants or concessional loans, would be directed towards Eskom’s repowering and repurposing initiatives, with the balance earmarked to help South Africa progress its plans for electric vehicle manufacturing and green hydrogen production.

De Ruyter listed converting the pledge into firm transactions as one of his top four priorities for the coming six months.

He listed the other three priorities to include:

finding a solution to Eskom’s outstanding municipal arrear debt of R42.5-billion;

securing a structural solution to the utility’s unsustainable debt position, which currently stands at R392-billion; and

addressing the poor performance of its coal generation fleet, the energy availability factor from which had fallen to about 65%.

De Ruyter did not expect the land-release programme to become a major source of new revenue, but rather to provide the impetus for much needed generation capacity on land that had limited commercial value to Eskom.

Most of the land is designated for agricultural use, with some currently leased out for grazing and other por...

While it expects hydrogen to be a major disruptor for the mobility ecosystem, the nascent maturity of the technology means that it will only “really see a meaningful impact” in decarbonising the transportation system towards the end of the decade, says Fitch Solutions principal autos analyst Joshua Cobb.

“That said, over the past couple of years, we have seen a lot of investment going into testing and developing hydrogen applications throughout the mobility ecosystem, especially when it comes to air, rail and sea transportation methods as these are some of the highest polluting components of the global transportation industry,” he notes.

Commercial and passenger fuel cell vehicles are the segments that offer the greatest potential for adoption over Fitch Solutions’ 2022 to 2030 forecasting period.

However, while Fitch Solutions continues to expect strong growth in hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles sales over its forecast period, Cobb highlights that companies are increasingly looking towards liquid natural gas to “kickstart” the decarbonisation of their logistics operations and supply chains.

“Despite the challenges from natural gas-powered vehicles, we expect government and corporates to continue to adopt zero-emission vehicles as their decarbonisation strategies gain pace and as the requirements become more strict,” he says.

Taking that into account, Fitch Solutions expects hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle sales to average yearly growth of about 50% over the next ten years, propelling global fuel-cell vehicle sales from about 11 000 units in 2020, to just under 1.3-million units by the end of 2030.

“We also expect a lot more diversification to take place within the global fuel-cell vehicle market. We forecast that Asia’s market share of global fuel-cell vehicle sales will shrink from a 83% in 2020, to about 36% by the end of the decade,” says Cobb.

This is as more countries adopt fuel-cell vehicle-supporting policies and more corporates start to shift towards hydrogen fuel cell vehicles over the longer term.

Nonetheless, Fitch Solutions suggests that fuel-cell vehicle sales will continue to be restricted by the slow pace of development of the refuelling network; however, the firm expects refuelling infrastructure policies from the likes of the European Union and the US to accelerate towards 2030.

DEMAND

As for demand, Fitch Solutions says hydrogen demand from the automotive sector was estimated at about 120 000 t in 2020. “We expect significant growth over our forecast period. Currently, we forecast that hydrogen demand from autos will reach a high of 21.75-million tonnes by the end of 2030,” he says.

In this regard, Fitch Solutions expects Asia to remain in the large-use market for hydrogen for its fuel-cell vehicles as it has been one of the earlier adopters in terms of fuel cell vehicles.

“We also highlight that we expect efficiency gains in fuel cell technology will see slower hydrogen demand growth in markets such as Europe where fuel cell vehicle uptake will accelerate only starting by 2030.

“This means that, because of our expectation that efficiency gains within fuel cell technology, Europe[an] hydrogen demand will remain somewhat less than that of Asia,” says Cobb.

Meanwhile, he points out that South Korea currently boasts the largest fuel cell vehicle fleet globally, with Fitch Solutions expecting the country to maintain its lead up until about 2029, at which point the firm expects the US fleet to overtake it.

Chemicals and energy group Sasol has announced a significant downward revision to its 2022 production forecast from its Secunda operations in Mpumalanga, owing to ongoing coal production problems.

The JSE-listed company told shareholders on Tuesday that output from Secunda would be between 6.7-million and 6.8-million tons during the 2022 financial year.

The revised forecast represents a major decrease relative to the 7.3-million to 7.4-million tons estimate of October, which was itself a downward revision from an initial forecast of 7.4-million to 7.5-million tons.

Sasol reported that there had been three major production impacts at it mining unit since the end of October, which resulted in more than 1-million tons of lost coal production.

“The most significant safety incidents which occurred since October 2021 include a fire at our Shondoni mine (no fatalities), an underground water reservoir incident at our Bosjesspruit mine (3 fatalities), and a high-wall failure at our Syferfontein mine (no fatalities).

“Collectively, these incidents contributed to just over 50% of the coal production shortfall,” Sasol said in a statement.

Coal operations were also negatively impacted by adverse weather conditions, operational challenges and a slower-than-expected ramp-up to full calendar operations, while external coal supply had been interrupted by wet weather.

The reduced coal availability and coal quality had led Sasol to reduce its production rates at Secunda until mining productivity rates had increased and stockpiles rebuilt.

“We recognise that our production challenges may impact on our ability to supply customers.

“We are currently reviewing multiple options including different sources of supply to supplement our production shortfall where feasible,” Sasol said in a statement.

The company said it would provide a production and sales update in January.

Eskom says the decision by government to refuse several applications for the postponement of the implementation of some of the air-quality compliance timelines set in legislation will result in the immediate shutting of 16 000 MW of capacity and have a “very significant impact on Eskom's ability to provide electricity”.

It is, thus, proposing an engagement with stakeholders on the “way forward”.

The State-owned utility confirmed in a statement that it had received the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s (DFFE’s) decisions on November 4, having submitted applications for 16 power stations during 2019 and 2020.

In these applications, Eskom had requested either a postponement, suspension and/or the setting of alternative limits of the Minimum Emission Standards (MES) for the stations.

In terms of the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act, 2004, Eskom's coal and liquid fuel-fired power stations need to meet the MES regulations published in terms of the Act.

The DFFE decision, which was made on October 30, included a determination to completely decline Eskom's request for postponements at Matla, Duvha, Matimba, Medupi and Lethabo.

Postponement applications for Majuba, Tutuka, Kendal, and Kriel were partially granted, while Eskom received positive postponement decisions for Grootvlei, Arnot, Hendrina, Camden, Komati, Acacia and Port Rex.

The positive postponements pertain to stations that are mostly scheduled to shut down by 2030, starting with Komati in September 2022 and Hendrina before 2025. The two peaking stations, Acacia and Port Rex, reach their 50-year life in 2026/27.

Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy has stated on several occasions that power plants must comply, arguing that there is no regulatory environment that allows for institutions not to comply. However, she has also indicated that full Eskom compliance could be ensured over time.

Eskom has estimated the cost of full MES compliance at over R300-billion and that the implementation of compliance projects could add at least 10% to the existing electricity tariff.

It has also warned of a 20% increase in water consumption if it were to install desulphurisation technology at Medupi, which remains a requirement of a World Bank loan.

The utility had, thus, proposed an emission-reduction plan that involved investing in technology retrofits to reduce emissions, together with the progressive closure of older stations and the introduction of cleaner generation technologies.

This “phased approach” to achieving MES compliance was expected to cost about R67-billion and would prioritise the reduction of particulate matter emissions, along with reduced nitrogen oxide emissions at the three highest-emitting stations – Tutuka, Matla, Majuba.

It also proposed that only the Kusile power station be commissioned with abatement technology to achieve all new-plant MES standards, while Medupi be retrofitted with flue-gas desulphurisation over time to meet new-plant sulphur dioxide limits.

“Eskom has reviewed the decisions and believes they will have a very significant impact on Eskom's ability to provide electricity,” Eskom said in a statement.

“We believe that the Just Energy Transition strategy as proposed by Eskom is a constructive way of transitioning to a cleaner environment while deploying limited funds to create additional generation capacity, rather than investing money in retrofitting expensive technology at ageing coal-fired plants with a limited remaining life.”

Quiet and unassuming, nestled in the seaport town of Gqeberha, there exists a factory, founded by Jimmy Price, where iconic American Shelby Heritage cars are produced for the local and global market.

Through the Hi-Tech Automotive factory, the full range of Shelby Mustang conversions are available in the country, enabling Mustang owners to access an extensive range of upgrades and conversions to enhance the performance and appeal of this model.

Shelby is an American aftermarket turning company. It was responsible for the creation of the Ford V8-powered Cobra, as well as the development of the Ford GT40 cars.

The company then specialised in bespoke aftermarket conversions, with much of its success posited as being the result of the performance upgrade on the Ford Mustang.

Outside of the US, Shelby American has modification centres in Canada, Australia, China, the UK and Europe. It is represented in South Africa through Shelby South Africa (SA), headquartered on the outskirts of Cape Town, in Malmesbury, and headed and owned by Motorsport stalwart Peter Lindenberg and chartered accountant Djurk Venter.

This local operation in the Western Cape has a fully equipped showroom and Mod Shop, with a Shelby American-trained head technician.

Moreover, in South Africa, there are also showroom facilities in Sandton and the Western Cape.

In terms of the Hi-Tech Automotive factory, long-time friends Price and Lindenberg collaborated to get the Shelby Mod Shop approval for sub-Saharan Africa.

Shelby SA served as the catalyst to launch the range of Shelby Heritage cars in the country, built from scratch by Price’s operation in Gqeberha.

Having signed the Shelby agreement, Lindenberg, through Price, then cemented the deal with Superperformance, in the US, the licence holder for Shelby Heritage cars globally for the retail of all right-hand drive cars.

Hi-Tech Automotive manufactures the range of Shelby-approved Shelby Heritage cars, ranging from the Cobra to the Daytona, as well as the Ford GT40 MKI and MKII.

Hollywood movie Ford vs Ferrari provided a global platform to showcase the various quality continuation model Shelby cars that are built at the Hi-Tech Automotive facility.

This is a closed facility that is not accessible to the general public; however, special allowances were made for media in December owing to the relationship between Hi-Tech and Shelby globally.

Speaking to Engineering News during the tour, Lindenberg said the facility generally produces about 400 cars a year. While this number was reduced by about half during the initial pandemic lockdown period in South Africa, it is now ramping back up to full capacity, he said.

Most of the production capacity goes towards orders for export, especially the US, he noted.

However, Shelby SA has also produced several MKII GT40’s and MKII Cobras this year.

The cars are built on a per-customer demand basis, he noted. They take about 2 000 hours to complete and the factory is also a good source of job creation for the area.

The Shelby Heritage and performance cars that are available for the country are delivered as rolling chassis to the Lindenberg Racing/Shelby SA facility in Malmsesbury, where the complete engine drive train, chosen by the customer, is installed by trained technicians.

State-owned electricity utility Eskom continues to maintain that its revenue application, including the implementation of regulatory clearing account (RCA) decisions already made, would translate to a 20.5% increase in the standard tariff on April 1, rather than the 32.15% hike outlined in a ‘pro forma’ table produced by the regulator.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) figure, which has been shared with Engineering News & Mining Weekly, is based on revenue from standard tariff customers rising to R302.9-billion in 2022/23, from R245.7-billion in 2021/22.

It differs from the R353.9-billion published in a consultation paper on the 2022/23 tariff increase, which pointed to a percentage price increase based on sales of 171 549 GWh of 54.35% for next year.

The pro forma figure includes R261.9-billion in allowable revenue that Eskom is seeking to recover from standard-tariff customers in the upcoming year. (The utility is applying for allowable revenue of R279-billion in total, including revenue arising from standard tariffs, negotiated pricing agreements and international customers).

The price increase that will be announced on February 25 is confined to the one that will be applied to standard-tariff customers.

Over and above the R261.9-billion, Nersa’s figure includes R14-billion arising as a result of RCA’s already approved, but not yet liquidated, for the third multiyear price determination (MYPD3) period, as well as R3.5-billion from the 2019/20 RCA, R742-million for the Short-Term Power Purchase Programme (STPPP) and a “government support refund” of R23-billion.

The refund referred to relates to a court ruling that Nersa’s decision to exclude a R69-billion equity injection from its MYPD4 allowable revenue was unlawful and should be added back to Eskom’s allowable revenue in future.

Nersa and Eskom agreed to a joint court order, for 2021/22, whereby R10-billion of that injection was recouped through the tariff, with the R59-billion balance to be recouped in future.

Eskom has indicated that it has not included any recovery of the R59-billion in its 2022/23, owing to the fact that no date has as yet been set for a Supreme Court of Appeal hearing on the matter.

However, Nersa has indicated that the appeal does not relate to the refunding of the equity, but rather to whether the ruling had breached the separation of powers by ordering that the average standard tariff for the 2021/22 financial be increased from 116.72c/kWh to 128.24c/kWh.

Although Eskom has indicated that a total of R103-billion in revenue is still awaiting court decisions and that another R10.7-billion in RCAs have been submitted, the utility is not expecting these amounts to be recovered in 2022/23 due mainly to the timing of the processes.

It also has stated that there is no accommodation for STPPP-related revenue on its own, as this is included in IPP revenue.

Eskom also stresses that it is not possible to compare an increase in allowable revenue as a percentage, as the comparison must be based on the increase in the actual tariff, which was 133.64c/kWh in 2021/22, after the R10-billion portion of equity-injection joint court order.

Should it increase to 161.04c/kWh as applied for, the increase would be 20.5%, Eskom adds, noting that the percentage increase is what the consumer experiences as a price adjustment.

In line with a December 3 court order directing Nersa to decide a tariff for 2022/23 by February 25, Nersa has set 16:00 on January 14 as the closing date for stakeholder comments on the consultation paper on Eskom’s revenue application and will conduct virtual provincial hearings between January 17 and 21.

An Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) comprising only solar, wind and storage (SWS) would deliver not only a load-shedding-free electricity supply industry but also create the platform for new industries to be built on near-zero-marginal-cost excess green electricity, a South African energy expert shows.

Detailed modelling undertaken by Clyde Mallinson outlines that this alternative SWS IRP would involve the deployment, between 2021 and 2040, of 40 GW of new wind, 230 GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) and 35 GW/290 GWh of storage, comprising mainly of battery energy storage and mechanical gravitational potential energy storage.

Such a system would cost $90-billion to build over the period at a yearly investment rate of about $5-billion, or about 1.5% of South Africa’s current gross domestic product.

It would deliver electricity at the factory gate at a cost of $0.03/kWh (R0.45/kWh in rand at prevailing exchange rates), well below Eskom’s current wholesale tariff of about $0.07/kWh, which are poised to rise to $0.15/kWh by 2030.

The SWS IRP deviates materially from the current IRP2019, which envisages a mix that is also dominated by wind and solar PV, but still includes new coal, gas and imported hydro.

Mallinson’s alternative IRP allocates far more to solar PV and storage than is the case in the IRP2019, with the wind and the storage designed to “see us through the night” and the capacity of the storage calibrated to the country’s current peak demand of about 35 GW.

The actual ratios of wind to solar PV could vary depending on future cost reductions, with the SWS IRP assuming a steeper decline in solar PV costs relative to wind over the period, reflected in the preponderance of solar PV in the IRP.

Such a system would not only adequately supply at least 231 TWh of conventional demand yearly but would also deliver a further 461 TWh of “superpower”, a term coined by independent US think tank RethinkX, or near-zero-marginal-cost clean electricity.

This ‘superpower’, Mallinson argues, could be used to bolster the competitiveness of existing economic activities such as mining and smelting, while opening prospects for new activities such as electric mobility, the low-cost desalination of water, or the production of green hydrogen for use in hard-to-abate sectors.

The large-scale output of the SWS fleet would be three times that of the current coal-dominated system, based on Mallinson’s reinterpretation for South Africa of the ‘Clean Energy U-Curve’ used by RethinkX to model a 100% clean-energy system for America.

That U-curve shows that the lowest-cost system, or “sweet spot” for South Africa would involve building an SWS fleet that produces 1.67 times the annual output of South Africa’s current fleet, at a cumulative capital cost of $71-billion. Such a system would deliver 155 TWh of so-called superpower, while meeting yearly conventional demand of 231 TWh.

However, Mallinson’s IRP is premised on a system that by 2040 will produce three times that of the current system, as it would deliver 461 TWh/y of near-zero-marginal-cost surplus green electricity for an investment only $25-billion larger than the least-cost solution.

“For only 38% more investment above the least-cost sweet spot, you get a disproportionate amount of superpower,” he explains, describing it as the 2040 target for which South Africa should be aiming.

MARSHALL PLAN-TYPE EFFORT

Mallinson argues that the disruptive changes under way in the electricity supply industry –facilitated by the precipitous decline in wind, solar PV and, more recently, storage costs – are irreversible and that instead of continuing to debate the mix of technologies, South Africa should turn its attention to accelerating SWS investments.

“South Africa’s combination of wind and solar is among the best in the world,” Mallinson asserts, adding that leveraging these resources through a system that offers both security of supply and superpower could unleash massive growth and job creation.

“We really ne...

The South African Bus Rapid Transit Association (Sabrata) has called on government to review legislation governing the bus rapid transit (BRT) industry, particularly to extend the 12-year bus operating companies’ contracts that are in place across the country.

The contracts will all expire within the next 6 to 12 months.

Sabrata was established in 2017 as a public transport association for BRT service providers. Its members are bus operating companies for the various BRT systems in South Africa.

The current BRT systems’ operating companies are Piotrans Phase 1A and Litsamiaso Phase 1B in Johannesburg; Tshwane Rapid Transit, in Tshwane; Kidrogen and Trans Peninsula, in Cape Town; George Link, in George; and KTVR, in Ekurhuleni.

A further seven BRTs are in the pipeline for eThekwini; Polokwane; Mangaung, Mduduzi, Rustenburg, Mbombela and Buffalo City.

Sabrata is a voluntary, nonprofit organisation and currently has five nonexecutive directors and a CEO, including executives of vehicle operating companies. It protects the interests of BRT operators, allied organisations and commuters.

The association outlined various contractual and tender issues relating to BRT systems around the country in a virtual briefing on December 9.

According to the National Land Transport Transition Act (NLTTA), 12 metros and cities were to implement BRTs.

Sabrata and its members want the current bus operating company contracts to be renewed. The call is made on the basis that the original contracts were not tendered contracts but rather negotiated contracts with the taxi industry where several considerations were taken into account, including the transformation and empowerment of the taxi industry.

The association does not agree with the idea of going out on tender. “Our call is about addressing imbalances, both past and present, creating a viable framework for bus operating companies across the country and ensuring that there is a level playing field for all operators.”

Sabrata’s concern is that the original legislation was developed on the basis that it would drive the process of empowerment, transformation and restructuring of the national land transport system initiated by the now repealed NLTTA 22 of 2000.

The association’s other concern is with the initial consultations done with taxi owners in 2009, prior to the implementation of the first BRT in Johannesburg, where the contracts were not properly explained. Sabrata believes government did not do enough to explain the contractual terms, cognisant of the fact that the taxi owners had never operated a BRT system before.

“Most of the promises made to our members by government when they joined the BRT have not been fulfilled. For example, there has been no transformation, minimal empowerment and no tangible value chain opportunities, despite a signed Value Chain Framework Agreement in some instances.

“Government promised that members would be better-off after joining BRT systems, yet the reality is the opposite.

“Our members are now required to respond to an open tender in a competitive bidding process, where they are expected to compete on a clearly unequal and prejudicial basis with persons who, unlike them when they joined, will not be expected to scrap their vehicles, relinquish their permits and be restrained from trading and earning a livelihood,” Sabrata explains.

Sabrata is therefore also calling for uniform standards and conditions across all bus operating company contracts. Unlike Sabrata’s members whose contracts have a finite duration, there are other players in the public transport sector who have enjoyed the privilege of continuous extension of expired contracts for decades and are not subject to responding to new tenders, the association states.

The association says its concerns are rooted in that the entry points for tender renewal are not equitable.

“In our view, there is no fairness and justice in such a process. The consequences of contract termination are dire for our members....