Ramaphosa ‘sabotage’ claim for electricity outages disputed
What you need to know:
Experts say while poor maintenance and ageing power stations are to blame, sabotage is likely, given the opposition to Ramaphosa and his planned reforms of state owned enterprises.
The opposition is coming from the National Union of Mineworkers and others within the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the ruling African National Congress party.
South Africans have in the last few days endured the worst load-shedding from power producer Eskom.
The national power utility has an installed capacity of more than 38,000MW but has at times this past week fallen up to 6,000MW short of average demand of 30,000MW.
The shortfall has led to load-shedding as cities, towns and rural areas take turns without power.
GOLD MINING
So severe is the situation that President Cyril Ramaphosa had to cut short a visit to Egypt, where he was to have talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Mining, manufacturing and even agriculture have ground to a halt. The gold mining industry particularly is hamstrung. Sending people three kilometres below the surface is unsafe if the electricity needed to bring them up or provide fresh air is missing.
This latest bout of outages – the third this year – will almost certainly push the country into a recession for the full year.
The first cost the country $2-3 billion per day, but the latest has been far worse and is well into its second week.
Every South African has been hit hard, especially as most outages are at peak periods during the day.
FIGHT BACK
Ramaphosa says some of the outages were caused by sabotage. According the President, crucial instruments were deliberately disconnected. The “sabotage” caused a loss to the grid of another 2,000MW.
Experts say while poor maintenance and ageing power stations are to blame, sabotage is likely, given the opposition to Ramaphosa and his planned reforms of state owned enterprises (SOEs).
The opposition is coming from the National Union of Mineworkers and others within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the ruling African National Congress party.
The so-called “fight-back” is by those loyal to former president Jacob Zuma and ANC-aligned union workers who oppose revamping of Eskom along with South African Airways, which was this week put into business rescue at Ramaphosa’s insistence.
These forces want to maintain jobs at Eskom, SAA and other SOEs at any cost.
JOBLESSNESS
While the ANC’s radical union allies are dead set against reforming the monopolies, the insolvency of SAA, the debt burden of Eskom and other SOEs mean job-cutting and some form of private sector investment must take place or these parastatal entities go the dinosaur way.
So job cuts are coming but in an environment where 10.5 million people are out of work and official joblessness is approaching 30 per cent.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) dismissed Ramaphosa’s claims.
“We are disappointed that the president was misled. Nobody has sabotaged the boilers or the station,” NUM deputy regional chairperson Bizzah Motubatse said.
RENEWABLES
“Whatever the president has said...is nothing but misinformation that was given to him. We sympathise with the president because he was misled. The capacity of Tutuka power station is 3,600MW so if you are to take out 2,000MW...three units will have to be sabotaged.”
Employees at the station say they are unaware of sabotage.
As the week came to a close, the crisis appeared to be ending – only for more units in Eskom’s fleet to go down.
By February, independent power producers would be feeding around 2,000MW from renewables, mainly wind and solar, into the national grid – much to the displeasure of unions.
That should bring some relief to South Africa’s limping power system, and will weaken the anti-private sector position of the ANC union allies and elements on the far left.
DYSFUNCTIONAL
While the power situation is a challenge for the Ramaphosa government in the short-term, and will certain put a dent in efforts to paint the country as open and ready for business, it has also provided him with the perfect excuse to do what almost every expert has said must done at Eskom and other of dysfunctional SOEs – cut jobs and put the right people in key positions.
It would appear that Ramaphosa is ready to do just that.
Chris Erasmus writes from Pretoria. [email protected]