Dear Editor
The repeated failure by the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, to table an updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) has been enabled by the indifference of his Cabinet comrades who have failed to hold him to account for stalling South Africa’s energy policy. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet should now bear collective responsibility for creating policy uncertainty on energy security at a time when the country is going through an economy-stunting electricity crisis.
Mantashe has missed several self-imposed deadlines to release an updated IRP, a failure for which he has faced no real consequences. The lethargic approach by Mantashe towards a new IRP is hardly surprising – he has made it his life mission to stall South Africa’s adoption of a renewable energy fueled future. He is aware that a credible IRP should place greater emphasis on renewable energy and enable and expedite a just energy transition, something which is at variance with his avowed preference for fossil fuels.
Without an updated IRP, South Africa will be forced to continue relying on the outdated energy assumptions of IRP 2019 that do not reflect what must be done to address the ongoing electricity crisis. It boggles the mind that Ramaphosa has been quick to establish a national crisis committee and energy task teams but has failed to show the same zeal in expediting South Africa’s electricity generation roadmap through the IRP.
Failure to produce an updated IRP has exposed the misplaced priorities of the Cabinet. On one hand they regularly call for increased private sector investment in the energy sector and the transmission grid, yet on the other they are failing to provide the necessary policy certainty to guide these investments. It confirms the widely held view that the ANC government has become the single largest impediment and obstacle to energy security in South Africa.
The DA holds the brief that an updated IRP should reflect South Africa’s current energy realities and projected energy demands
by:
- Increasing projections on electricity that can be generated from renewable energy sources to reflect increasing capacity from IPPs who have been approved in all the bid windows;
- Changing baseline assumptions on baseload from coal and nuclear towards renewable energy sources and dispatchable batteries;
- Institutionalising rooftop solar as a key source of embedded power generation;
- Opening up the energy generation market from a single seller to a multi-seller dispensation to facilitate competition and price rationalisation; and
- Increasing investment in grid capacity to support IPP projects.
Even with lack of policy clarity at national level, DA run governments have taken the lead in implementing key interventions to address loadshedding. The City of Cape Town is the leading metro in South Africa that has facilitated the rapid expansion of embedded generation at household and businesses. In a few years’ time, most DA-run municipalities will be free from the failing Eskom monopoly and set on a firm path towards a sustainable energy future.
Regards
Kevin Mileham MP
DA Shadow Minister of Energy
Spooky Electric
Diary of an Englishman after he moves to South Africa….
**August 1**: Just got transferred with work from London, UK to our new home in Phalaborwa, Limpopo, South Africa. Now this is a town that knows how to live! Beautiful, sunny days and warm, balmy evenings. I watched the sunset from a deckchair by our pool yesterday. It was beautiful. I’ve finally found my new home. I love it here.
**September 1:** Really heating up now. It got to 31 today. No problem though. Living in air-conditioned home, driving air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun every day like this. I’m turning into a sun-worshipper – no blasted rain like back in London! Had the back yard landscaped with tropical plants today. Lots of palms and rocks. No more mowing lawns for me! Another scorcher today, but I love it here. It’s Paradise !
**October 1:** The temperature hasn’t been below 35 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least today it’s windy though. Keeps the flies off a bit. Acclimatizing is taking longer than we expected. Fell asleep by the pool yesterday. Got third degree burns over 60% of my body. Missed three days off work. What a dumb thing to do. Got to respect the old sun in a climate like this!
**October 25:** This wind is a bastard. It feels like a giant fucking blow dryer. And it’s hot as hell! The home air conditioner is on the blink and the repair man charged R200 just to drive over and tell me he needs to order parts from @#$# Johannesburg. The wife & the kids are complaining.
**October 30:** The temperature’s up around 40 and the parts still haven’t arrived for the fucking air conditioner. House is an oven so we’ve all been sleeping outside by the pool for 3 nights now. Bleeding R4 million house and we can’t even go inside. Why the hell did I ever come here?
**November 4:** Finally got the fucking air-conditioner fixed. It cost R1,500 and gets the temperature down to around 35 degrees. Stupid repairman. Fucking thief. If one more smart bastard says ‘Hot enough for you today?’ I’m going to fucking throttle him. Fucking heat! By the time I get to work, the car radiator is boiling over, my fucking clothes are soaking fucking wet and I smell like baked cat. Fucking place is the end of the Earth.
**November 9:** Tried to run some errands after work, wore shorts, and sat on the black leather upholstery in my car. I thought my fucking backside was on fire. I lost 2 layers of flesh, all the hair on the backs of my legs and off my fucking behind. Now the car smells like burnt hair, fried bum and baked cat. The Weather report might as well be a fucking recording – hot and sunny. Hot and sunny, Hot and fucking sunny. It’s been too hot to do anything for 2 bleeding months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Fuck!!
**November 15:** Doesn’t it ever rain in this darn place? Water restrictions will be next, so my R5,000 worth of palms might just dry up and blow into the fucking pool. The only things that thrive in this hell-hole are the fucking flies. You don’t dare open your mouth for fear of swallowing half a dozen of the little buzzards!
**November 20:** Welcome to HELL! It got to 45 degrees today. Now the air conditioner is gone in my car. The repair man came to fix it and said, ‘Hot enough for you today?’ I wanted to shove the car up his backside. Anyway, had to spend the R2,500 of the mortgage payment to bail me out of jail for assaulting the stupid fool. Fucking PHALABORWA! What kind of sick, demented idiot would want to live here!
**December 1:** WHAT!!!! The FIRST day of Summer!!!!
You are fucking kidding me, right?
Dallas Foxface
Fun South African Fact: South Africa’s natural and human fossil history dates back hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years. Early dinosaur fossils have been discovered in the Western Cape and up to 80% of mammalian fossils found so far have been discovered in the Karoo.