To WEF or not to WEF: Wherever Ramaphosa may be, Eskom’s crisis remains South Africa’s true catastrophe

16 Jan 2023

The announcement that President Cyril Ramaphosa has cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week to deal with the load shedding crisis is but another indication of the toxic politics of our energy catastrophe. There are, however, tight limits on what the President can really achieve, and anyone expecting a short-term solution to South Africa’s power crisis will be disappointed.

At the same time, there are the first signs that opposition parties and others are now preparing to make the Eskom disaster a political issue. If they are successful in making rolling blackouts a key issue during next year’s elections, it could put the ANC — as the party responsible for this situation — out of work for the first time since the advent of democracy.

On Sunday night, Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya confirmed that Ramaphosa was no longer going to Davos and was instead continuing to meet Eskom’s leadership and the National Energy Crisis Committee.

This has already happened before; just a few short months ago, in September, Ramaphosa rushed home at the implementation of Stage 6. Other trips have also been disrupted in the past.

It is not clear exactly what the President will do this time, though.

While some could argue he needs to avoid the perception of enjoying the good times with the global power circle (and, presumably, uninterrupted electricity) while much of the country is in darkness, that does not mean his time here will be productive.

By making such a public statement of intent, it could raise expectations that he will do “something” — that there will be some announcement, some fix to the situation, however unlikely.

From what Eskom has said, there is no physical intervention that can be made; bluntly, it does not appear that Ramaphosa’s political power will allow him to change the laws of physics. There is nothing he can say to make a 50-year-old coal power plant run properly overnight.

Also, it suggests that when he is not in the country, certain things happen, and that when he is in the country, something different happens. Perhaps he was not only worried about the flow of electricity.

Where’s Mabuza?

The decision not to go to Davos also raises another question.

Technically, it is Deputy President David Mabuza in charge of the task team — or “War Room” — that is supposed to manage the Eskom crisis.

Where is he? Why is he silent at this crucial and colossally dangerous moment?

This gets to the heart of Mabuza’s weakness. The results of the ANC’s recent elective conference show that he appears to have no constituency, and, literally, no political power whatsoever. Now, he can even be ignored during a moment of national crisis on an issue that is his direct responsibility.

The last big announcement by Ramaphosa about our power crisis concerned the reforms of July 2022, which saw private companies being allowed to generate electricity and sell it, with no limits imposed by the state.

While that model is likely to have an impact in the longer run, the space for reforms involving the private sector may now be more limited. In other words, there may no longer be any kind of reforms that can be announced which will add serious generating capacity to the grid in just two years.

This is largely because of the limitations of the grid. As Prof Anton Eberhard put it in Business Day on Monday, “There is no more important reform in SA’s power sector than taking transmission, system and market operation out of Eskom.”

Political tangles

While it is technically possible for Ramaphosa to announce some kind of reform around this, it seems virtually impossible to achieve a political backing.

Both the current minister with responsibility for Eskom, Pravin Gordhan, and the minister who may soon gain responsibility for Eskom, Gwede Mantashe, appear to oppose such a move.

If the President’s options are so limited, those of opposition parties and other groups may be even more so.

It appears that certain groups are planning some kind of action.

One leg of this appears to be a court application brought by people such as UDM leader Bantu Holomisa, Rivonia Circle’s Lukhona Mnguni and Bosa leader Mmusi Maimane.

Maimane says this is aimed at Nersa’s decision to allow Eskom to hike prices by more than 18% this year.

It also appears that this group is demanding that load shedding simply cease immediately, or that there is a proper explanation for why it cannot be stopped.

But this has been explained many, many times by Eskom. About how it does not have the capacity to produce electricity, and that its power stations are prone to breakdowns. And that rolling blackouts are there to protect the grid from a national shutdown, which could leave the entire country without power for between 15-17 days.

Legal angles

Also, it is not clear that last week’s tariff decision is legally irrational.

Nersa would have considered this application very carefully. In the past, Eskom has taken Nersa to court for not allowing high enough increases, and has won most of those cases.

While it may be frustrating for people to pay more for a failing service, this just may be the price to pay to fix Eskom. It is a demonstration of how succeeding generations end up having to pay for problems that were created by the previous bunch.

While Eskom’s problems have piled up over about 20 years, it is those who are paying for electricity now who will have to cough up to fix it.

It happens often that those who pay for service, or pay tax now, have to fork out for a problem with deep historical roots. It also happens around the world. (In an extreme case, British taxpayers only stopped in 2015 paying off the debt incurred by the formal end of slavery and payments to those who owned slaves. The payments were made in 1833).

Protests

However, there is now also some evidence that opposition parties are planning protest action over load shedding.

Both the ATM and the DA say they will put pressure on the government over this issue, suggesting there should be a “day of action” involving protests against the government. Others will probably join them.

The ANC itself has said that rolling blackouts cost it votes, and there are elections next year.

It is likely that one of the key variables that could affect the outcome of that poll is turnout — the percentage of people who vote could well decide who is in the Union Buildings in the second half of next year.

Meanwhile, the portion of people who vote in our elections has been dropping, as citizens appear to lose faith in all the formal political parties.

However, load shedding could be an issue that drives turnout for opposition parties.

If they can harness the issue properly and use it to encourage people to vote “against load shedding”, this could well tip the balance in their favour.

This underscores the pressure on government, the ANC and Ramaphosa from this issue.

When will it end?

On Friday, Mantashe was quoted by eNCA as saying that load shedding could be over in “six to 12 months”.

While this may seem more like fantasy than science fiction, the energy analyst Lungile Mashele said on Newzroom Afrika on Monday afternoon that the power crisis can be over by this time next year.

For this to happen, she says, there needs to be a new plan to manage the situation at Eskom, better-qualified managers and complete political buy-in from the ANC. She suggests that outgoing Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter never enjoyed the confidence of the governing party, which prevented things from moving quickly.

While this may be cause for optimism, it also raises questions about the ANC. It suggests that some in senior positions in government could have done more to fix the problem, but failed to do so simply because they did not like, or want to work with, De Ruyter.

But another expert, Hilton Trollip, gave a different view.

He says, “Don’t believe people who tell you they can fix these machines in six months…”

Trollip says Mantashe has misunderstood the situation, clearly believing that the 22 gigawatts of generation capacity is offline, when in fact the capacity that is offline is not the same generators, but that rather at any one time there are 22 gigawatts of capacity offline.

In other words, it’s different units that are constantly breaking down.

To put it another way, he suggests that Eskom is only set up to repair around 12 to 15 generating units at any one time, when about 40 are offline at any one time.

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Meanwhile, it should not be forgotten why we are in Stage 6 in the first place, though the government did promise to lower it to Stage 5 (we should be so grateful now — Ed).

One unit at Koeberg is out of service for refurbishment, amounting to one stage of load shedding. De Ruyter has said that sabotage amounts to “one or two” stages of load shedding.

The newer power stations, Medupi and Kusile — built to stop this situation from ever developing in the first place — are a massive problem on Eskom’s hands too. If both were working at full capacity, it is unlikely that we would have load shedding at all.

Both are the subject of investigations which have found that corruption linked to State Capture was involved (in at least one case, the ANC benefited directly, through the boiler contract with Hitachi SA which had a deal with the ANC’s investment company, Chancellor House).

In the meantime, there may be a sense that the ANC, and government, are losing control of the power situation, and the country with it — that those who can, are buying their way out of the system, and that the entire electricity network is undergoing fundamental changes — a part of the process of weakening the South African state.

For the moment, it appears Ramaphosa is unable to make much difference to this, no matter where in the world he may be. DM

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South Africa

Where’s Mabuza?

Political tangles

Legal angles

Protests

When will it end?