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The Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) has welcomed the publishing for comments of the draft South Africa Renewable Energy Masterplan (SAREM).

The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy published the draft masterplan for comments on Monday.

The SAREM is a document 18 months in the making with the DMRE holding extensive consultations with stakeholders, industry experts, labour and other government departments.

“The SAREM heralds a new impetus  for our country’s renewable energy drive and ambition. To this end, as PCC we welcome the four priorities as outlined in SAREM being: Supporting the local demand for renewable energy by unlocking market demand and system readiness, driving industrial development by building renewable energy value chains, and supportive trade and industrial policy, fostering inclusive development through transformation, supporting the development of emerging suppliers and building local capabilities in skills and innovation and associated industrial development.

“The PCC therefore acknowledges the SAREM as a catalytic contribution to our country’s transition to a net zero carbon future and provides a baseline for social consensus and further detailed planning and implementation of essential projects and programmes to achieve our objectives by 2030,” the commission said.

The PCC emphasised that although the SAREM is a step in the right direction, resolving South Africa’s current energy crisis remains a top priority.

“The commission reiterates that the immediate challenge remains the current energy crisis and reaffirms its support for the Energy Action Plan, and the broader reforms to the energy sector particularly, the lifting of the cap on embedded generation, and enabling household roof-top solar systems through incentives and feed-in tariff regime as announced previous by government.

“The Commission believes that the Masterplan should contribute to the achievement of a just transition and supports the shift of South Africa’s electricity supply and reiterates the need of a ‘transition-capable’ developmental state to navigate the complexities of transition and in moving forward, the PCC will submit additional comment on the SAREM to the DMRE for consideration by government on the implementation of the SAREM in line with our recent pronouncement on the energy mix,” the PCC said. – SAnews.gov.za

It was a joyous occasion as Health Minister, Dr Joe Phaahla, and other government officials turned the first sod to mark the birth of the groundbreaking new Limpopo Central Hospital in Polokwane.

The barren land, situated a stone’s throw away from the Peter Mokaba Stadium, will soon be turned into the state-of-the-art hospital, which is one of the five flagship academic hospitals around the country. 

Equipped with advanced medical technology, the Minister said the hospital will offer cutting-edge diagnostic procedures and innovative treatments. 

The project, which was launched during this year’s Nelson Mandela International Day, has been a long time coming since the initial planning of the hospital started in the 2008/09 financial year. 

However, Phaahla said he was pleased when a Master Plan, which was approved by National Treasury in 2022 was finally approved for the 488-beds hospital. 

“This day of laying the foundation for the construction of the Limpopo Central Academic Hospital is a culmination of the work of many years by many people, some of whom are here while others are not.”

The Minister announced that the health facility in association with the health science faculty of the University of Limpopo will make a significant contribution to health education and research.

“The establishment of a specialist hospital in this province will bolster the health sciences education and training, creating more opportunities for future generations to pursue careers in health sciences. 

“The university’s health sciences faculty which houses the medical school, must start concrete plans to attract specialists and super-specialists to train doctors and other health professionals.”

He is of the view that the establishment will reduce Limpopo’s dependence on Gauteng for specialised medical care.

Meanwhile, as a teaching institution, it will also provide valuable educational opportunities for health sciences students ranging from medical students to nursing, physiotherapy, pharmacy and more. 

The hospital will also offer emergency health services, critical care, surgery, rehabilitation, and ancillary services. 

“This will not be an ivory tower, but part of a network based on the foundation of primary healthcare.”

Meanwhile, he said the success of the execution is going to depend on cooperation by all the role-players. 

The department has assigned the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) appointed as an implementing agent, working with technical professionals of Sakhiwo, and Enza construction company. 

“This team is under very strict instructions which were given by President [Cyril] Ramaphosa. He said to me that this must not be another Eskom-like Medupi, where you budget so much and you end up spending three or four times more. I assured the President that all those shenanigans will not happen here.”

Minister Phaahla called on the service providers to deliver a quality product, on time and within budget.

“As a result, their mandate is to complete and hand over the keys by Christmas of 2026 to whoever will be the Premier or Minister and when they hand the keys, it must be like the [impressions we saw on the screen].”

At various stages of construction, the department expects to produce about 2 000 jobs and about 2 000 more, once it is fully operational. 

However, he cautioned that not everyone will get a job or contract while the hospital is under construction.

“Above all, thousands of lives will be saved every year,” he stressed. 

Phaahla thanked the Limpopo government for their cooperation and assistance and former Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi who started the process and laid the foundation for this hospital to be built. 

“I am confident that if we embrace the spirit of President Mandela; of doing everything for the most vulnerable we can disappoint the naysayers. 

“This Limpopo Central Hospital will be one of the pillars to deliver the National Health Insurance. In Madiba’s memory, let us deliver the Limpopo Central Hospital.” – SAnews.gov.za

South Africa is honoured to take over the Chairmanship of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa, says Public Service and Administration Deputy Minister, Dr Chana Pilane-Majake.

“Our focus is to build a partnership between BRICS and Africa to unlock mutually beneficial opportunities for increased trade, investment and infrastructure,” she said.

The Deputy Minister said Africa, through the African Union (AU), has engineered and approved the African Union’s Agenda 2063, with the intention of building strong institutions to enhance cross-border economic development and good governance.

Pilane-Majake said this when she addressed the BRICS Conference on Governance and Public Administration Reform at the University of Pretoria. The event was held as a build-up towards the BRICS Summit which will be held in August in South Africa.

The government of South Africa, she said, was certain that the BRICS partnership had the ability to support South Africa and the African continent at large on the journey towards economic recovery.  

“This will contribute to making Africa’s economy globally competitive, reduce the cost of doing business, attract investments, and stimulate economic growth, thus alleviating poverty and unemployment,” she said.

Pilane-Majake said without capable public institutions, there is a risk of collapse of governments and other sectors of society.

“Building capable institutions requires an investment in building human capabilities to be diligent, masterful and innovative,” she said.

The National School of Government in South Africa remains a key institution to drive the developmental state agenda of building state capacity. This year marks 10 years since the establishment of the National School of Government. – SAnews.gov.za

The Presidency has welcomed the decision of the Johannesburg High Court ordering that the answering affidavit related to the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant matter be made public.

“President Ramaphosa was never opposed to making the affidavits public; it was only in compliance with the ICC directive that the Presidency sought to maintain confidentiality on the affidavit,” the Presidency said in a statement on Tuesday. 

This comes after President Ramaphosa filed a confidential affidavit in response to an application by the DA seeking a declaratory order to compel the state to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin should he set foot in South Africa ahead of the BRICS Summit next month.

In March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin, who is expected to attend the BRICS conference in Johannesburg on August 22-23. 

South Africa is a signatory to the Rome Statute and continues to campaign for equal and consistent application of international law.

BRICS is a bloc of emerging economies that includes Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa. – SAnews.gov.za

The recent publishing for public comments of the intention to designate the Namakwa Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Northern Cape is a critical milestone, says Trade, Industry and Competition Deputy Minister Nomalungelo Gina.

This as the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) through Minister Ebrahim Patel published the announcement in terms of section 24(1) of the Special Economic Zones Act No 16 of 2014, aiming to designate a certain portion of land for ‘strategic national interests’.

The project is expected to inject over 3000 permanent jobs into the South African economy.

The proposed SEZ comprises of 1270.06 hectares of land and is located in Namakwa in the Northern Cape. It is bordered on the north by the N14 road which links to the town of Pofadder to the east and the town of Aggeneys to the west.

Gina who is a national champion of the Namakwa One Plan District Development Model (DDM), says the SEZ is one of key economic development programmes in the district.

She said the SEZ currently has an investment pipeline of over R29 billion that will result in the creation of 3250 jobs during the various phases of development.

“The overall current investment pipeline boasts of small to medium-sized investment companies with activities in green hydrogen and ammonia fuelling, refurbish and repairs, energy and petro chemical for local mobility, manganese sulphate and mineral beneficiation. 

“The SEZ will logically connect with another project being built in Ritchersveld Municipality, the Boegoe Baai deep sea port which will be the epicentre of green hydrogen generation in South Africa,” she said on Tuesday.

Vendata Zinc International is an anchor investor with R16 billion earmarked for its operations in the Namakwa SEZ.

Members of the public have until 22 August 2023 to submit comments or objections to Patrick Mlangeni at SEZEquiries@thedtic.gov.za – SAnews.gov.za

International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Dr Naledi Pandor, is to lead a local government delegation to the 25th Ordinary Meeting of the SADC Ministerial Committee of the Organ (MCO) in Windhoek, Namibia.

The delegation includes the Minister of Police Bheki Cele and the Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni. 

Namibia currently holds the chairmanship of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence, and Security Cooperation, supported by the outgoing chair South Africa and the incoming chair Botswana.

“The mandate of the Organ is to promote peace and stability in the SADC region as a prerequisite for the achievement of SADC objectives of socio-economic development, poverty eradication and regional integration,” said the department.

It said it was expected that the meeting – taking place from 20 to 21 July 2023 - will take stock of the work of the Organ and receive reports on the implementation of the decisions of the last MCO held in July 2022 in Pretoria, South Africa. 

It will also reflect on the SADC Summit of the Heads of State and Government hosted in August 2022 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. 

The meeting will also receive reports from the Inter-State Politics and Diplomacy Committee (ISPDC) and the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee (ISDSC). 

“The outcomes of the meeting will be presented at the Ordinary Summit of the Organ Troika on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation which will be held in August 2023 in the Republic of Angola.” – SAnews.gov.za

Experts and industry leaders agree that Eskom – and by extension the country – is not likely to incur a total grid collapse and blackout despite current electricity generation challenges.

This came out during a webinar hosted by the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) on the myths and facts about electricity grid stability on Wednesday.

Eskom’s General Manger System Operator Isabel Fick emphasised that although South Africa does have a capacity generation problem, throughout global examples, this has not caused system blackouts.

“The probability of a national blackout is extremely low. A number of other areas across the world…did have national blackouts. Nowhere will you see that [these] were because of a lack of capacity that caused a national blackout.

“In all those cases it was a cascading event starting in the transmission space,” she said.

Fick said South Africa has only had regional blackouts before and load shedding had no role in both.

“We have never had a national blackout in South Africa. We have had two regional ones before. One was an event where we had a transfer limit issue to the Western Cape and the other was a snow event in KwaZulu-Natal.

“In those cases we had to deal with a regional blackout and in the case of the Western Cape, we started load shedding in 2006 which was the basis of the current load shedding regime that we are using in South Africa,” she said.

The system operator assured South Africans that Eskom has in place at least six “defensive barriers” that can prevent any blackout including a reserve margin of 2200MW available at any time.

“Effectively each of these…represents a barrier in place that we can even get to a national blackout. It starts from the building and design phase of our equipment, how we operate our equipment and also the emergency response that we have. All of those have to essentially fail before we get to a national blackout.

“Thereafter we have to restore, should [that] ever happen. Even in that case we have a number of plans in place, very flexible plans because it will depend on exactly what state the network is in. If we do have networks on islanding, that will be the fastest route and our estimation is between six and 14 days [for restoration] should we ever have a national blackout,” she explained.

She said the network is monitored on a second by second basis that will ensure that any event is immediately dealt with.

Expert consensus

During the webinar, Fellow of the South Africa Institute of Electrical Engineers Professor Jan de Kock concurred with Fick and added that Eskom staff are improving the system daily.

“It’s fair to say that it’s highly unlikely that we’ll have a total grid collapse in South Africa. We can’t say it will never happen but it’s really unlikely.

“Our grid at this stage is well managed and we have excellent people investigating causes of small disturbances, multiple unit trips and in the process we’re actually improving grid performance nearly on a daily basis,” he said.

Chairman of the Management Committee National Rationalised Specifications (NRS) Association of South Africa, Vally Padayachee emphasised that as a key stakeholder, the association “will not allow” any compromise of the system to the point of allowing a blackout.

The NRS SA is a powerful organisation with membership including the eight metro municipalities, Eskom,  theNational Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), and the Association of Municipal Electricity Utilities of Southern Africa.

“We are nowhere near a total grid collapse. [The association’s] mandate is to protect the national electricity grid of South Africa. We will not hesitate to exercise this mandate at a moment’s notice, especially during a power system emergency, without fear or favour to prevent the national grid from going to a blackout situation…a total grid collapse.

“We want to give the public and other key stakeholders the assurance that without any fear or favour, we will not compromise the integrity of the grid in support of the system operator. We will not compromise the grid,” he said.

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) senior researcher and electrical engineer, Monique le Roux explained that the institution and Eskom have been working closely together to ensure that the system is continuously as stable as possible.

“Studies are going on in the background with Eskom leading this and we are supporting them where we research projects together. The aim with this is to give people comfort that there are studies that are ongoing that looks at the system on an ongoing basis to determine if the safety margins are in place, if the system can be run ably and if mitigation is necessary,” she said.

Le Roux added that Eskom is using a power system analysis software that she says is a “very powerful tool” used throughout the world to keep the lights on safely. – SAnews.gov.za

The Presidency has confirmed that President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin will not attend the 15th Summit of BRICS - however, the Russian Federation will be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“By mutual agreement, President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will not attend the Summit but the Russian Federation will be represented by Foreign Minister, Mr Sergey Lavrov,” the Presidency said on Wednesday. 

President Ramaphosa has in recent months and weeks held a number of consultations on the hosting of the Summit. The President’s most recent consultation in this regard took place on Tuesday night at the BRICS Political Party Dialogue in Gauteng.

President Ramaphosa confirmed South Africa’s readiness to host the historic 15th Summit of the BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

This will be the first BRICS Summit to be hosted in person since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent global restrictions. 

“President Ramaphosa is confident that the Summit will be a success and calls on the nation to extend the necessary hospitality to the many delegates who will arrive from various parts of the continent and the globe,” the Presidency said. 

The Presidency added that a comprehensive statement on the substantive issues to be covered at the Summit and other related foreign policy matters will be issued in due course. – SAnews.gov.za