Eskom said on Thursday that it rejected the offer by Mozambique to buy 100 MW of electricity from the country.
“After carefully considering the economic and technical parameters (of the deal), a decision was taken not to pursue importation from the power plant,” Eskom told the Mail & Guardian.
About six months ago, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa and Mozambique’s energy minister, Carlos Zacarias, signed the energy agreement that would have seen more energy flow into South Africa and would have led to less strain on a failing and ageing national energy grid.
So what was the reason for the decision by Eskom? The tariff structures were not acceptable to Eskom and were double the acceptable amount.
LOAD SHEDDING
In 2023, the country experienced 6,947 hours of load shedding and in 2024 we have endured 334 hours, according to The Outlier.
CRITICISM OF MINISTER RAMOKGOPA
Former Eskom CEO, Andre de Ruyter, said in mid-December that he was perplexed over the appointment of an Electricity Minister and said it was strange and unhelpful.
Speaking to Business Day Spotlight, De Ruyter explained that he did not understand why another person was needed to implement the Energy Action Plan.
“The appointment of an Electricity Minister was a somewhat puzzling move because, at my time at Eskom, we were already stretched thin in terms of making presentations to and attending meetings with government officials,” De Ruyter noted.
The implementation of another leader created confusion over reporting lines and essentially was just more bureaucratic red tape at Eskom, according to the former CEO.
“The introduction of an additional layer, without simplifying reporting lines, that probably was not helpful,” De Ruyter added.
Moreover, he said that Ramokgopa did not have the powers to effectively implement his mandate.
“So, I don’t think the mandate of Minister Ramokgopa has been clarified properly at any time, and I don’t think he seems to be very sure himself of what he is supposed to be doing,” De Ruyter said.
De Ruyter was quick to maintain that the state utility’s team was already meeting at all hours of the day to implement and address the needs of Cabinet.
ENERGY IS TOP OF THE AGENDA AT WEF
Despite these setbacks, it should be noted that Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said earlier this week that SA was committed to better structural reforms that would foster more economic growth and competitiveness.
Godongwana was speaking at a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting held in Davos, Switzerland.
“There are a number of things we are doing to deal with structural reforms,” Godongwana said and emphasised that energy reform was top of the agenda.
“A new challenge has been the logistics sector, where we are investing a lot in it. We have been trying to change the skills composition to the extent that we don’t have and we have provided an environment where we can import skills with ease,” he told delegates.
“So there are lot of structural reforms that we have engaged in, in order to make sure that we can grow the economy and be competitive.”
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