It isn't news to anyone who has been paying attention that President Jacob Zuma's administration, captured and Gupta-ed as it is, is single-handedly destroying South Africa's economic prospects.
ANC MPs now openly mention the inevitability of an IMFbailout.
As the budget deficit reaches R50-billion for this financial year alone, and with the meltdown of state-owned enterprises - think Eskom, PetroSA, SAA - coming thick and fast, talk of such a bailout may prove to be prescient foreshadowing.
Ignore the recent headlines of a return to growth - South Africa will grow by a paltry 0.2% this year and 0.9% the next, which will do absolutely nothing to blunt the poverty and unemployment affecting 30.4 million South Africans.Against this background, the chaos in the energy sector is literally adding fuel to South Africa's economic meltdown.
With the potential fiscal risk arising from the Department of Energy's liabilities running into billions of rands in taxpayers' money, such a statement certainly is not hyperbole. The risk looks something like this: R1-trillion for nuclear (don't be fooled, the programme continues apace), R16.2-billion impairment liability for PetroSA, and about another R1-billion to replace our illegally sold strategic fuel stocks.
Tally those figures up, add them to the gaping fiscal black hole at Eskom, and you have a sector that is ready to torpedo the economy, if not the country as a whole.
So what is to be done?
The short answer - like the answer to most things ailing the republic - has three steps: fire Zuma; conduct a forensic audit into every member of his family; and deport the Guptas without their illicit gains.Sadly, none of the above is likely to occur in the short to medium term or even the longer term, as an Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma victory remains the most likely outcome in the ANC leadership race this December.
It was Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, who said politics is the art of the possible. This being so, the room for manoeuvre is indeed limited, but all is not lost.
At the core of any fightback against the Zuptarisation of the energy sector are three letters: IRP, the abbreviation for integrated resource plan. This document forms the basis of all of the government's energy planning.
At the moment, the draft submitted for public comment says two important things. Essentially, it says "no" to nuclear for at least another 20 years, and it states that South Africa must pursue a least-cost energy mix option (essentially saying "no" to nuclear again and favouring the introduction of infinitely cheaper renewable energy technologies).
This document has already passed through cabinet once and amendments that deviate too broadly from the original will be subject to significant contention - probably a court challenge. Importantly, it seeks to ensure South Africa produces electricity as cheaply as possible, since there is a positive correlation between electricity production and GDP growth in South Africa.
Cheap electricity is critical if we are to attract job-creating investment and boost GDP growth. As an input cost, expensive electricity not only deters foreign investment but dampens existing economic activity.The publication of the IRP has yet again been delayed by Energy Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi.
It was originally scheduled for publication last month, but Kubayi will now only finalise the IRP by the end of March next year - a decision clearly timed to prevent the nuclear issue from further inflaming what is going to be a hostile ANC elective conference.
The IRP's prescriptions offer the surest possible solution to supporting economic growth - well that, and not giving away our national energy resources to the Russians.
Now if only the ANC government could implement it. But as with the National Development Plan, putting words into constructive action to benefit the country instead of the Zupta cronies is too much to expect from the Zuma government.
• Mackay is an MP and DA spokesman on energy..