Polity.org.za Audio Articles

Leader of the opposition party John Steenhuisen said emphatically, on Friday, that blame for the country’s current energy crisis should be placed at the door of the governing African National Congress (ANC).

In an exclusive interview with Polity the Democratic Alliance (DA) leader said poor ANC policies have resulted in Eskom’s weakened state.

He referenced the ANC’s practice of cadre deployment, which he said has hollowed out the State-owned enterprise over the last decade and has even displaced qualified engineers and technical personnel.

“We don’t have an Eskom problem in South Africa. We’ve got an ANC problem. They are the government, they are directly the reason we’re sitting with the loadshedding crisis through their acts of omission and commission over the course of the last two decades,” he said.

The DA is also taking Eskom to court over the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) decision to grant Eskom electricity tariff hikes. Steenhuisen said Nersa’s decision is not justifiable and he pointed out that “there are a number of areas where Eskom should be looking at to put itself in a better financial position”.

He claims that the power utility is 66% overstaffed with employees who are not core engineers and who are not core to the Eskom key business.

Furthermore, he said Eskom has been the site of major corruption in the form of huge price gauging on all procurement because of “mafia gangs” that have been placed at Eskom through cadre deployment.

Steenhuisen also shared that his party rejects the ANC’s suggestion that Eskom be moved to the Mineral Resources and Energy department, headed by Gwede Mantashe.

He said the problem is that Mantashe has been the single biggest obstacle to renewable expansion in South Africa and the single biggest ideological obstacle to the country being able to transition to alternative forms of energy.

When asked about the impact of loadshedding on the agricultural sector, he said there has been very little action taken by Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Thoko Didiza.

“There is going to be massive crop failure because farmers cannot irrigate their crops. Over millions of chickens had to be destroyed and set aside because of the failure of electricity in the country. And it really affects every business but it is going to impact now on food security.,” said Steenhuisen.

He warned that more job losses could be on the horizon in a country with a 42% unemployment rate.

“Loadshedding and the crisis at Eskom is the single biggest crisis facing South Africa’s growth and jobs agenda. It is the single biggest inhibiting factor to us being able to encourage entrepreneurship and new business development but also to retain existing investment,” he told Polity.

Steenhuisen is hoping that many South Africans will join his party as it prepares to march to ANC headquarters at Luthuli House on January 25 in protest of the energy crisis and silence from government on the matter.

He said Luthuli House is “the scene of the crime” as the ANC has centralised the power and functions of the State at Luthuli House.

“There is no use in us begging government to do the basic job it should be doing anymore, we’ve got to compel them now to do so and that is why we are marching and we are going to be taking legal action,” he said.

The class of 2022 is the absolute embodiment of true ambassadors of public schooling, a meritorious position which they earned, and which is not hereditary.

This was how Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga described the performance of the country's top matric pupils at public schools.

Motshekga hosted a ministerial breakfast for the top performers from the class of 2022 and their parents at the MTN headquarters in Roodepoort, Gauteng, on Thursday morning.

"You were the group we were extremely concerned about, but you emerged victorious and stood firm against adversity."

She said the class of 2022 did the last two and half years of their schooling under intermittent Covid-19 lockdowns, school closures and various difficulties, including curriculum trimming.

"Nevertheless, you emerged victorious. In the face of adversity, you stood firm. This is a group that showed high levels of resilience. When the putrid smell of failure was intense, you people seemed unacquainted with the concept of failure," Motshekga said.

She praised the pupils for putting in the long hours and avoiding the "well-beaten path to failure by being slack".

"By rubbing shoulders with the top 2022 learners today, I feel goodness and mercy keep following me all the days of my life. Today, we converge for one reason only – to celebrate the best of the very best among us.

"For reasons best known to our critics, public schooling that serves over 12-million learners is often derided and treated as a Cinderella of education," she added.

Motshekga also praised parents for the support and love they gave their children throughout their schooling careers. She said a lot could be drawn from the youth.

"These young people teach us to be focused, determined and hardworking, so it always excites me to have this opportunity," she added.

She said the top achievers showed that success was not "an act, but a habit".

"History will record that to be a top matric learner in 2022 was no mean feat when one considers that we had the largest cohort of learners sitting for matric exams.

"As a nation, we must celebrate our winners because they demonstrate the values of honesty, resilience and tenacity," she added.

Motshekga said a matric certificate was not "just a piece of paper" but had high value.

"It is the only nationally recognised certificate after studying for 12 years at primary and secondary school. It opens doors to the post-schooling sector, bursaries for top learners and even short-term employment opportunities," she said.

Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe is adamant that he is not to blame for continued loadshedding – even though his department oversees the procurement of generation capacity and not a single megawatt has been connected to the grid during his tenure.

In a wide-ranging interview with News24 on Tuesday, Mantashe, who is also African National Congress (ANC) chairperson, not only continued to distance himself and his department from the crisis but doubled down on his comments that effectively accused outgoing Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter and staff at the power utility of treason.

He also made further potentially misleading claims that Eskom was allowing generation capacity to "stand idle" when it is in fact broken and in need of costly and time-consuming repairs, which may not be financially viable.

He told News24 that he was not lying by saying the capacity was idle because the units were not decommissioned but needed to be serviced and maintained.

News24 reported that nearly 59% of Eskom’s baseload generation capacity was offline last week, prompting the implementation of stage 6 loadshedding as funds for diesel also ran out.

The utility has since secured another 50-million litres of diesel used at its Open Cycle Gas Turbines that burn diesel at high rates and alleviate the worst levels of loadshedding.

Environmental regulations will also force Eskom to shut down 13 000 megawatts of coal fired power stations by 2035 – and the utility is currently embroiled in a dispute with the environmental affairs department over capacity that was supposed to have been shut down already in April 2022.

Mantashe defended his record by pointing out that deals have been approved for around 6 700 megawatts – 3 200MW of which could not be approved immediately due to grid access problems, he claimed.

"Now, I always accuse some of the people of always looking for Bantu to blame, the Bantu to blame and criticise," he said in response to whether he had advocated for the R131-billion in funding from foreign nations to be used to upgrade the grid – which had been Eskom’s proposal from the start – that would alleviate the grid access challenges.

Mantashe instead equated the R131-billion COP funding as being too low a price to "sell" the coal mining industry that had a turnover of R130-billion in 2021.

The use of COP funding will not have the impact of destroying the coal industry – which is benefitting from higher export levels to Europe as it struggles to meet energy shortfalls created by Russia cutting off gas supply.

Mantashe however, has pointed out that European countries are increasing reliance on coal, and said South Africa needed to "free itself from encirclement" and "jumping" every time Europe talks.

He brushed off criticism that he and his department had not acted fast enough to assist in alleviating the current crisis by heeding calls from business to open bid windows faster.

This while he repeated his claims that Eskom, in not resolving loadshedding, was "pitting society against the ruling party" and lashed out at "liberal analysts and journalists", whom, he claimed, wrote "rubbish" in the media.

"I don’t know what is slow because I don’t build power stations," Mantashe said.

"I don’t build facilities for [independent power producers (IPP)] now [to say] slowness. it almost assumes that if I approve a bid window, I must go and build that facility myself."

He said he was becoming used to being "an object of abuse".

"The responsibility of the minister of energy is not to connect megawatts to the grid. I am stating that as a fact," Mantashe said. He said under him, the department had approved more renewable IPP projects than had been approved between 2011 and 2018, roughly 6 700MW, of which only 3 853MW will move ahead and another 3 200MW in limbo over grid access problems.

He said the department would "soon" open up bid window seven for an additional 5 000MW.

"My responsibility is to approve, if there is a bid window ...

Former president Jacob Zuma had to be present in court on Thursday for the private prosecution he instituted against President Cyril Ramaphosa in order to avoid it being struck off the court roll or dismissed.

This was the submission Zuma's lawyer, Dali Mpofu, SC, made before Judge Ismail Mohamed in the Gauteng High Court, where Zuma sought a date for the private prosecution.

On Monday, a full Bench of the High Court interdicted Zuma from proceeding with his case against Ramaphosa, pending the president's application to have the private prosecution invalidated as an abuse of the legal process.

On Wednesday, High Court Judge Roland Sutherland set down Ramaphosa's review application for 17 and 18 May.

Although Monday's order meant Ramaphosa was not required to appear in court on Thursday for the private prosecution.

However, this was not the case for Zuma.

Mpofu argued that in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act, if the private prosecutor - in this case, Zuma - doesn't physically appear on the day the matter is in court, the charges against the accused must be dismissed unless the court is presented with reasons for the private prosecutor's failure to appear. If the failure was out of the private prosecutor's control, the court can adjourn or postpone the proceedings to a later date.

"So it is that last part that really brings us before your lordship for the court to adjourn or postpone the case to a later date," he added.

Zuma could not take the "risk", he submitted, of having the matter struck off the roll or dismissed because "we cannot bring it back."

Mpofu also argued that they disagreed with Ramaphosa's interpretation that Monday's order exempted him from appearing in court on Thursday.

"We have a different interpretation, but that is not a matter that your lordship must worry about today," he said.

The private prosecution case has been postponed to 26 May.

Appeal

Mpofu also told the court that Zuma had instructed his lawyers to appeal Monday's order.

However, he added that they were still deciding whether to appeal directly to the Constitutional Court or whether to approach the Supreme Court of Appeal.

With the Part B of the application set to be heard on 17 and 18 May, it is not clear what Zuma will be appealing.

Spokesperson of the Jacob Zuma Foundation, Mzwanele Manyi, was at pains to explain to the media what Zuma intended to appeal.

"We are appealing the interdict. We are appealing the non-presence of the accused (Ramaphosa)," he said.

He added that the foundation would also issue a statement explaining what the appeal was based on.

"There are just too many things that the Bench misdirected itself on, and the lawyers will point all of those out," Manyi said.

No case on court roll

Before the court proceedings kicked off, there was confusion over whether the matter would proceed because it was not on the court roll.

Chief registrar, Roanne Bramdaw, told journalists that there was no matter involving Zuma on the court roll due to Monday's judgment.

But Mohamed said he was not told about the matter and only found out about it in the morning.

After a steep fall in January, petrol and diesel prices are currently on track for more cuts in February, the latest information from the Central Energy Fund shows.

However, recent strong gains in the oil price and a weaker rand may put price cuts at risk.

The fuel prices are usually adjusted on the first Wednesday of a month and determined by the price of oil and the rand-dollar exchange rate.

Based on the latest oil and rand prices, the fund's data shows that the price of 95 unleaded petrol could be cut by around 14c in February, with 93 petrol due for a 7c decrease.

Diesel prices could decline by between 37c and 49c a litre, based on current estimates. This could bring the Gauteng diesel price to below R21 for the first time since March. Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered a spike in oil prices since February.

Petrol is already back at pre-invasion levels.

However, gains in the oil price and the dollar before the end of the month could still thwart fuel price declines. On Tuesday, Brent rose by more than 2% to above $86 per barrel following stronger-than-expected Chinese economic growth data.

In addition, the rand came under pressure this week. After reaching R16.70/$ last week, on Tuesday it was trading around R17.20.

At the start of January, the petrol price (both 93 and 95 unleaded) was cut by R2.06 a litre, while diesel was lowered by between R2.69 and R2.81.

Annual consumer price inflation cooled to 7.2% in December, down from 7.4% in November and 7.6% in October, Statistics SA reported on Wednesday.

The consumer price index increased by 0.4% in December from the previous month.

Prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages rocketed by 12.4% year-on-year, only slightly down from 12.5% in November.

Bread and cereal prices were 20.3% higher in December 2022 than a year earlier, while oils and fats (+22%) were also much more expensive. Meat prices rose 10% in 2022, while vegetables increased by 12%.

While South Africa has enjoyed bumper crops, fuel price hikes and load shedding have pushed prices higher.

Transport costs were almost 14% higher in December 2022 compared to a year ago, even after sizeable cuts in the price of diesel at the start of the month. Following further declines at the start of January, the petrol price is back to levels last seen before the invasion of Ukraine triggered an oil price surge.

The SA Reserve Bank only expects inflation to "sustainably" move back to its targeted level of 4.5% by the second quarter of 2024.

With inflation still far above its target level, traders expect the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates when the monetary policy committee (MPC) meets again on January 26th.

The prime rate has already moved from 7% in November 2021 to 10.5% currently, as the MPC attempts to cool inflation.

Average annual consumer price inflation for 2022 was 6.9%, compared to 4.5% in 2021.

The African National Congress's (ANC's) caucus in Parliament wants every single Eskom power station manager to account for the breakdowns and poor management that have left South Africans without electricity for up to 12 hours daily.

Several sources told News24 that the meeting, which blurred the lines between the party and government, took place on Monday night, where Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and the Eskom leadership were peppered with questions on the rolling blackouts.

However, according to the sources, Eskom merely presented an outline of the current challenges it faces. They did not want to divulge what Mantashe and Gordhan had said in the meeting.

MPs apparently told the Eskom leadership to get their act together and address the decade-long problem.

"We told Eskom that we are tired of the lies, and we want to get to the bottom of all of this. We want every power station manager to come and account. If there is mismanagement under their watch, we need to ask them what they have done. We are paying this company huge amounts of money. We need to know why everything is breaking down now," said one MP, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Another MP said independent power producers would only come on board in a few months' time. This means that should the energy crisis not be addressed, Eskom will continue to implement high stages of loadshedding.

ANC MPs made it clear that the situation could not continue and demanded concrete plans to solve the crisis.

There was also a debate on the use of coal versus renewable energy, but MPs told Eskom the debate should stop because a mixture was needed.

"The coal is there. We will still have power stations," it was said.

Other MPs called on Eskom to ensure that South Africa had enough coal supply before it was sold off to other parts of the world.

Another MP, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, downplayed the meeting as an ordinary meeting of the ANC caucus.

It was argued that the ANC did not invite officials to account to them and that ministers, who are also ANC members, ordinarily addressed the caucus on issues such as Eskom's challenges.

Eskom denied that the meeting took place and, in a response to News24's questions, its spokesperson, Sikonathi Mantshantsha, said, "I am not aware of any meeting Eskom held with the caucus of any political party. I am only aware of Eskom having met the president and some Cabinet ministers this afternoon, as communicated in the Eskom statement I published in the afternoon."

ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina did not want to comment on the matter and Gordhan's spokesperson, Richard Mantu, read questions News24 had sent to him but did not respond.

Amid the deepening electricity crisis, the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) approved an 18.65% tariff hike.

South Africa has experienced loadshedding every day this year, compared to no loadshedding over the same period in 2022. Loadshedding was implemented every day in November and December.

Eskom announced last week that Stage 6 loadshedding would continue until further notice.

However, on Monday the embattled power utility announced that Stage 4 loadshedding would be implemented from 05:00 to 16:00 from Tuesday, followed by Stage 5 loadshedding between 16:00 and 05:00 from Wednesday.

Several high-profile leaders and major groups say they have no other choice but to take the government, Eskom and Nersa to court over the loadshedding crisis.

According to Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, South Africa has a plan to improve energy provision that will end the need for any power cuts within the next 12 to 18 months.

He spoke to Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss resort of Davos.

South Africa’s National Energy Crisis Committee, a body run by the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa, expects record power outages to ease as measures put in place, including a new law to fast-track plant development, take effect.

The committee, of which several cabinet ministers are members, told business and labour leaders on Monday that a range of interventions have been made at a time when South Africans was enduring blackouts of as much as 12 hours a day.

“As these measures take effect, the supply of electricity will significantly improve,” the committee, known as Necom, said in a presentation sent to Bloomberg by Ramaphosa’s office.

South Africa’s government has faced sharp criticism after power cuts were imposed on 205 days last year and every in 2023. Ramaphosa cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos to hold crisis talks with power utility Eskom, labour groups and business.

The measures that Necom said may ease the crisis include:

The first of more than 100 privately owned power plants being developed will connect to the grid by the end of this year. In total, the planned projects could produce 9 000 megawatts, much of it for the companies’ own use.

Emergency legislation is being developed to allow the faster approval and development of power plants.

Contracts for the construction of plants that will produce 2 800 megawatts of renewable energy for the grid have been signed and construction will soon begin.

As much as 1 000 megawatts may be imported this year from neighbouring countries and Eskom, will buy 1 000 megawatts of excess energy from private producers who already have facilities.

Six of Eskom’s 14 coal-fired power plants have been “identified for particular focus” in a bid to get them to perform more reliably.

Efforts to finish incomplete plants and maintenance of other major units are being made.

The time to complete regulatory processes for new plants has been reduced.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a mourning period of seven days in honour of the late founding speaker of South Africa’s democratic Parliament Dr Frene Ginwala.

Ginwala passed away at her home in Cape Town last week, following a stroke two weeks earlier. She was 90 years old.

The national flag be flown at half-mast at all flag stations around the country from January 17 until the evening of January 24.

The Presidency will, in the coming days, announce details of an official memorial service taking place in Johannesburg on January 24 as a tribute to the late speaker.

Amid crippling loadshedding across the country, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will head to the High Court to interdict the 18.6% electricity tariff hike that was recently granted by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to Eskom last week.

DA leader John Steenhuisen said South Africans, who have already had to spend a third of 2022 in darkness and are burdened with indefinite Stage 6 load-shedding, are now expected to also pay for the looting and mismanagement of Eskom through exorbitant tariff increases.

He argues that electricity tariffs have already increased by more than 650% since the energy crisis started in 2007, which, he says, is quadruple the inflation rate over the same period.

The DA’s lawyers will ask the High Court to have Nersa’s decision be declared inconsistent with the Constitution of South Africa, declared invalid, and to have it set aside.

The party also wants loadshedding to be declared inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore invalid, and to have these decisions set aside.

The interdict will also try to have the government’s response to the ongoing energy crisis declared inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid.

“To have government’s response to the crisis declared as having failed to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights, thereby limiting the right to human dignity, the right to life, the right to an environment that is not harmful to health and well-being, the right of access to healthcare services, the right to access sufficient water, the right to basic education, and the right to access courts,” Steenhuisen said.

The party will also ask that the court direct government to file, within 30 days, a comprehensive plan, including short-term, medium-term and long-term steps, to avert the energy crisis.

Steenhuisen also invited South Africans to join his party on a march against the ongoing energy crisis to the African National Congress headquarters in Luthuli House in January 25.