Governing party knows continued blackouts are huge threat to its electoral support
Instead of addressing the country’s looming power crisis, the ANC chose to hide its head in the sand and use Eskom as a feeding trough for grand-scale corruption, as numerous court cases and inquiries have shown, says the writer. Picture: BLOOMBERG.
With the 2024 elections about a year away the ANC’s desperation to cling to power is again in full swing, using the same tactic. In Gauteng, where the party is at its weakest outside the Western Cape, premier Panyaza Lesufi has tried to deflect from governance failures such as Covid-19 corruption and the Life Esidimeni and e-toll debacles through gimmicks such as the Nasi Ispani and Crime Wardens projects, which only provide false hope.
Its election campaign will therefore be premised largely on managing load-shedding, including scheduling the polls for May, when the threat of load-shedding is usually at its lowest and the effect of rolling blackouts on the lives of the electorate therefore most subdued.
Information from the state-funded Council for Scientific & Industrial Research reveals how ANC management has resulted in the sharpest decline in energy availability factor at Eskom over the past decade. It is therefore now burning the most diesel yet to avoid higher stages of load-shedding as the 2024 election draws nearer.
The implementation of the just energy transition may actually help Komati contribute more to the grid. Before its closure, the 62-year-old power station had a maximum output of just 114MW, but now Eskom is adding 150MW of solar PV capacity on the property, 150MW of battery storage and 70MW of wind turbine capacity.
A liberalised energy market should be created in which private players directly compete with the state to supply electricity, with the state maintaining control of strategic infrastructure such as the national grid. Where this has been implemented elsewhere in the world electricity prices have fallen, whereas in SA Eskom was recently granted a whopping 18.49% electricity price increase.
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