Like children of an emaciated mother whose breasts have dried up, the Association of Comms and Telecoms (ACT) of South Africa have recently come together crying for milk. This goes to show the crisis has become an impending catastrophe. Telecommunication companies have installed solar panels and batteries but, like the stretched-out breasts, cannot produce milk no matter how much the child cries. Significant evidence should be sought from Germany, and the cries by ACT just confirm that the Just Energy Transition (JET) is just a lemon and not an orange. Yet there are promises of about 9,000 megawatts of installable renewables. Take it from Germany, which has gone for real power from coal and heeded electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa’s cry that only coal or nuclear provide baseload required for a secure grid. Minister of forestry and fisheries Barbra Creecy in her budget speech hopes for milk when her more-than-affording data centre have confirmed that solar’s breasts have actually dried up. Go to any shopping mall and you’ll see many heeded the call with football pitch-sized installations. Yet when Eskom goes in its astronomic load-shedding level ntoni-ntoni, these shopping malls fold into darkness.
The Just Energy Transition (JET) might prove itself to be South Africa’s rip-off of the century after slavery, colonialism and apartheid. The pressure has resuscitated an overzealous 20-year prison chain at a R500bn tag. Karpowership’s deal from Turkey has risen from the dead and given oxygen by the illusive solar panels. Our cabinet, like little children, have had a grenade in a room filled with guests and asked Andre de Ruyter to pull the pin. Like Samson in the case of Delilah, De Ruyter pulled the pillars of our electricity temple and flattened us under it. Not solar, not wind and not even 9,000 megawatts will save us because solar and wind can never be good for baseload. The science says so and Germany just burnt its fingers by not heeding the science. Creecy’s massive numerology and its economy-destroying aroma is just what it is, a breast that will never produce milk. ACT says so, the shopping malls say so, households say so, and industry says so.
`This drama leaves the nation with cold comfort as they confront a winter of draconian load-shedding.
De Ruyter’s unceremonious departure from Eskom seems to have united those who have shared opposing views on this longest-serving and controversial CEO at Eskom. He not only was controversial but presided over the demise of Eskom. A number of people, like the late Ted Blom and myself, did not have any confidence in this parachuted CEO who had nothing in his briefcase to qualify him to run a power-generation company. In questioning his credentials, I argued I would wake up from my coma on a surgery table if a chef suddenly pretended to be a brain surgeon. I would rather die with that brain tumour. Yet those in power in South Africa pushed the lawyer into the furnace chambers to resolve a complex system such as power generation. His first observation was concerning albeit expected. He condemned the power stations he was supposed to fix. He gave a litany of excuses to the nation that the power stations were too old, were pushed too hard, were not maintained, and he even went further to prove the point by successfully shutting down Komati as a parting gift to the nation. While just after his departure load-shedding took to a better turn, it was not long before double-digit shedding became common.
Surprise, surprise — those who swore by him have now made a U-turn after not only his hurried book but his tell-all TV interview as well as Scopa interrogation. De Ruyter takes no prisoners as he throws all and sundry under the bus. His book released just a month after his departure from Eskom makes you wonder what his performance contract entailed. Was it taking notes and compiling a dossier, was it about raising money for the JET, was it to ensure Eskom paid its loan, was it about killing Eskom or was it to make Eskom perform and relieve us of load-shedding?
On ensuring that Eskom generates energy and relieves society of continuous blackouts, De Ruyter failed with flying colours and will be known as the CEO under whom South Africa was plunged in darkness for the longest period. On the issue of raising money for the JET, there are those who are unhappy with Ramokgopa for advancing the case for delaying the shutdown on coal-fired power stations and reopening those that were closed. These compatriots argue South Africa will miss out on the $8.5bn promised. The Treasury seems not to have the money in the kitty yet, and the prospect of finding its way into the hungry kitty is not guaranteed. Many like Prof Mark Swilling are saying South Africa will be a pariah state and forfeit exports to Europe if it does not press ahead with scheduled shutdown of the coal-fired power stations. The question though that remains is whose interests does closing coal-fired power stations serve when that has exposed South Africa to an existential precipice. Should they press on and tip over or should South Africa seek a moment of sobriety and get its social and economic matrices right. Was De Ruyter mandated to pay and reduce Eskom's debt? In the time that he served he was able to pay at least R80bn of Eskom’s debt. But he successfully constrained maintenance and the current load-shedding can be attributed to the rush of blood to the head to pay Eskom’s debt, the remainder of which has been taken by the Treasury. So why the heroism when a year later the Treasury had a solution. That bravado plunged us into the hitherto unheard-of load-shedding. So De Ruyter’s measure of success, while his mandate was to generate power, was to write his book, pay part of the Eskom debt and close down Komati. But it is his hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned approach that has solicited comical responses from the executive, calling to question who and what credentials held sway for the appointment of De Ruyter. In one instance at the hearing on the Scopa, Pravin Gordhan denied knowing De Ruyter as an honourable man and performer.
The question is, why did he appoint him in the first place? Why did he keep him and longer than any other executive who had done better than De Ruyter? The Scopa hearing exhibited no love lost between the two men. De Ruyter left no stone unturned on the president’s men and the president himself as he spilled the beans. This drama leaves the nation with cold comfort as they confront a winter of draconian load-shedding. De Ruyter has tried to paint himself as innocent in this whole saga. He might just be innocent though. His mandate might be what he pursued and accomplished. First raising the JET money, closing Komati coal-fired power stations and paying Eskom’s debt. These goals were achieved with flying colours, and to that end his masters kept him despite protestations from some of us who were not impressed.
What is lacking in the Scopa hearings are the penetrating questions that the chair of Social Justice at the University of Stellenbosch would ask on foresight of societal impacts before the JET was contemplated and implemented. A patient analysis of who would be affected severely when the power stations are retired are crucial social justice questions. Obviously, the risk assessment considering a plethora of scenarios never crossed the minds of those in the JET. The whole JET has little regard to the poor who face the brunt of the cold winter. Businesses are shutting down because of unmitigated load-shedding. Accompanying this catastrophic manufactured event are the losses of livelihoods and lives. Hot on the heels of Covid and its devastating consequences, buying into the illusion of JET without thorough care has left South Africans in a deadly situation with a government now determined to tie them to a two-decade Karpowership deal of R500bn for the next 20 years.
The day of reckoning is nigh. The De Ruyter book has thrown the cat among the pigeons, and boy aren’t the pigeons flapping wings all over the show and sounding more incoherent the more you listen. If former president Jacob Zuma agreed to a commission of inquiry as instructed by then public protector Thuli Madonsela, Ramaphosa may in his wisdom call for one without a public protector’s recommendation. What is unfolding turns the deplorable escapades of the Gupta fugitives into a picnic. De Ruyter’s often self-righteous account, however irritating to Pravin and many others, remains instructive on the wanton neglect and non-accountability, including ironically the irresponsible appointment of De Ruyter as a CEO of the most strategic institution. But he became an irritant and a useful idiot.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
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