South Africa's electricity minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, is alive to weaponisation of the country's energy crisis against the ruling African National Congress.
That country goes to the polls early next year to elect members of the National Assembly, from whom a president is ultimately elected.
Speaking during an interview on NBC's talk show 'One on One', Ramokgopa was interviewed by this journalist on the energy situation in his country, and how he has fared in the role since his appointment in March and the 2024 elections.
At the onset, the engineer-turned-politician branded the energy crisis the single biggest existential problem facing South Africa.
"Load shedding is causing significant devastation to the South African economy. The South African Reserve Bank does make the point that 1 000 megawatts of unmet energy can translate into a contraction of 5% to the South African GDP, about R300 billion. It also goes further to make the point that in 2022, the economy lost about 659 000 jobs as a direct result of load shedding," Ramokgopa said.
This year, South Africa is likely going to lose 850 000 jobs due to load shedding.
"If you look at the sectors that are disproportionately affected, you find that your primary sectors of the economy, mining and agriculture, are adversely affected. And that's important because those are sectors of the economy that have got the highest employment absorption capacity," Ramokgopa continued painting the gloomy picture.
He added that the secondary sector of manufacturing is the second hardest hit by the crisis.
"If you look at the retail sector, some of the big retail companies, make the point that they have to spend upwards of 1.3 billion rands just to sustain their production or activity. And that translates into inflationary pressure. If you had to look at the share of the poorest [households'] disposable income that is directed at the basic food basket, it's such that it's disproportionate compared to the more affluent, the middle class. Therefore, the poor are disproportionately affected," he said.
Acknowledgement
He then pointed to policy missteps by the governing party - which he is a member of -, which led to the current electricity crisis they find themselves in.
In essence, he acknowledged that it is the ANC's fault that the country is today plunged into an electricity crisis.
The policy missteps date back to 1997.
"Essentially, we've been the principal authors of the failure of generation capacity who are going to be the masterminds of how we are going to resolve the problem. And like I said, it's within sight," the minister said.
Explaining the policy slip-ups, he said: "So if you look at the historic trend, so you go back to 1997 at the time, the people at Eskom [South Africa's power utility] were making the point that at the rate at which we are connecting new people onto the grid including those in the far-flung rural areas as part of the victory of the democratic project striving towards universal access - and the rate at which the economy is growing, they made the point that we are going to run into a major energy problem in 10 years from 1997, and they were advocating for significant investments in the new generation capacity.
"And of course, we made policy choices, which appears to now, it's apparent, those are policy missteps. So at the time, governments thought that the private sector was going to fill the gap. So there's no need for Eskom to embark on new generating capacity. The private sector will be able to read the market, and they'll make the necessary investments. The private sector didn't come to the party. Fast forward to 2005, we were sitting on the problem."
But progress has been made since his appointment to resolve the crisis.
"When the president unveiled the energy action plan in July of last year, we needed 6 000 additional megawatts to be able to balance. Of course, I did say to you that we have gotten about 3 000 to 4 000 of those megawatts from the time that the president introduced the energy action plan. We are confident that between now and December, we'll get up to 4 000 megawatts. So essentially, we have exceeded what the president's set target," he said.
Blackout
Asked whether South Africa would one day plunk into a total blackout, he brushed that possibility off.
"We will never get to that stage. Let me just explain to you how this thing works. The higher the stages of load shedding, the greater the confidence in the systems operator. So you have generation and then you have demand.
So if generation far exceeds demand, what the system operator does, is he engages a mechanism to deny these people who want to demand their right to electricity, and that's what you and I call load shedding," he said.
He continued:"The bigger the gap, the higher the stages of load shedding. Why is the system operator doing that? He or she wants to protect the grid. It must operate at about 50 hertz. So that's all that the system operator is doing. The inverse is also true. If you have got a generation that is higher than demand, all that they do instead of denying load shedding, he tell the stations, please bring down the production of electricity. So if you see stage three, stage four, and others, they use it in colloquial terms. You should have confidence that the system operator knows what he or she is doing to protect the grid and ensure that at all times demand is matched by generation".
Elections
It is an open secret that the energy crisis has been weaponised against the ANC ahead of next year's decisive polls.
It is also reported that South Africans will vent their frustration about the lack of reliable electricity supply at the ballot.
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Ramokgopa is aware of this.
"My view is that the minimum requirement in resolving a problem, first is to acknowledge that it exists. And second, just to understand it's a manifestation if you like the anatomy of the problem. We [ANC] have accepted that we are the ones who are the champions of the victory of the democratic project. We have made policy missteps on the electricity question," he said.
While the ANC-led government has fallen short on the electricity, it has excelled in other areas, he said.
"We have made significant advances in other areas [such as] universal access to the social wage, free basic education, free higher education, the rollout of five million houses for free. So we have achieved all of those," he pointed out.
He is confident about liquidating the electricity crisis as a deciding factor in next year's polls.
"The resolution of this problem is not inspired by our electoral prospects. It's about the devastation that is causing to the South African economy. When we started, I mentioned the kind of injury that is causing to the South African economy, farmers can produce or can't produce competitively. And that has got the food price and inflation is devastating the poor. So we are resolving an economic question. Of course, it's got political and social manifestations. But in the immediate, it's about the harm that is causing to the South African economy," he said. - emumbuu@nepc.com.na
