Riyaz Patel
South Africa will embrace efforts by businesses to generate their own electricity, President Cyril Ramaphosa assured a conference organized by Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) Tuesday.
He was reacting to growing frustration at red tape impeding private power generation, and is under mounting pressure over nationwide power cuts that have retarded economic output and drained investor confidence in Africa’s most industrialized economy.
Many power-hungry companies such as mines want to build their own renewable energy plants to reduce their reliance on Eskom, which generates more than 90% of the country’s electricity, but have not been able to secure the necessary regulatory approvals.
“For the first time we are now saying let us have self-generation,” Ramaphosa told the country’s largest business lobby group in Johannesburg.
“We have opened up a new era … that says we are now embracing the fact there are those companies and households that want to generate their own energy.”
South Africa’s mining industry body the Minerals Council Monday urged the government to act urgently to bring online new power sources and ease licensing rules.
Some labor unions and some senior members of Ramaphosa’s governing ANC are deeply suspicious of allowing in more independent power producers.
A vocal coal lobby has also blamed renewable energy firms for hastening Eskom’s financial decline.
Ramaphosa said government has heeded the call by business to decentralize state owned enterprises and reduce political interference.
He said the restructuring at Eskom is part of this endeavour
The President also asked business leaders to present solutions to redistribute land to majority blacks as the government works to finalize changes to legislation and the constitution to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation.
“This year we are going to have to finalize the legislation and the constitutional construct on the land question,” he said.
“I would like to see the business community taking this issue up rather more seriously.”
Business Unity South Africa (Busa) president Sipho Pityana cautioned against using the ongoing crisis at State-owned electricity producer Eskom as a “political football, as evidenced by the attack on Public Enterprises Minister (Pravin Gordhan) and the new-found appetite, in some quarters, for moving Eskom from the Public Enterprises portfolio to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.”
In a blunt address at the Business Economic Indaba 2020, Pityana reiterated Busa’s position that the absence of electricity security represented the single biggest concern of business.
“We urgently need security of electrical energy supply, without which the country can’t survive, let alone business.”
Business Unity South Africa (Busa) president Sipho Pityana
Pityana added that business was also deeply concerned that leadership appointment considerations at Eskom might become caught up in “African National Congress (ANC) factional battles that have nothing to do with national interests.”
Pityana’s statement came against the backdrop of calls from several organisations, including the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, for Gordhan to be axed by Ramaphosa.
Gordhan’s opponents suggest he was complicit in the President being ‘misled’ by the Eskom leadership when he announced, on December 11, that South Africa would not be confronted with load-shedding again between December 17 and January 13.
The President made the announcement after cutting short an official visit to Egypt on learning that Eskom had, on December 9, declared Stage 6 load-shedding for the first time ever.
Despite the intervention, Eskom resumed rotational power cuts on January 4, prompting the resignation of Eskom chairperson Jabu Mabuza, who, in his resignation letter, apologised for Eskom’s inability to meet the commitment it made to Ramaphosa on December 11.
“We take no comfort from the resignation of the chair of Eskom, we need to be informed what happened to the restructuring recommendations made by both the board and the Presidential technical task team. How are the governance concerns raised by the board with Parliament going to be addressed?” Pityana said.
“We are deeply concerned by suggestions that leadership appointment considerations at this critical organization might be caught up in ANC factional battles that have nothing to do with national interests.”
The Busa president continued to express support for Ramaphosa and his open and inclusive leadership style.
“We would, however, caution against an overemphasis on leadership by consensus for this can condemn our nation to move at the pace of the slowest and the most conservative; or worst still being vetoed by an unaccountable lot.“
The challenges we confront demand urgency, agility, quick footed responses and yet humble and thoughtful stewardship.”
Describing South Africa’s current economic crisis as “unprecedented,” Pityana said the crisis demanded, “credible, single-minded, resolute and decisive leadership that sets the tone, determines direction and pulls the nation with it.”
“We surely have enough technical committees, task teams, Presidential commissions – including the planning commission whose recommendations gather dust in the presidency – summits, conferences and Lekgotlas, etc. Too many processes and little or no action.”
