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DUSTBIN OF HISTORY

By: Darlene Creamer 21st January 2022 South Africa simply cannot afford a repeat of 2021 this year. Further delays in dealing with the country’s big problems of load-shedding, economic and social crime, vaccine hesitancy and, most worryingly, a growth rate that is too low to make a dent into chronic unemployment will set the scene... →

South Africa simply cannot afford a repeat of 2021 this year. Further delays in dealing with the country’s big problems of load-shedding, economic and social crime, vaccine hesitancy and, most worryingly, a growth rate that is too low to make a dent into chronic unemployment will set the scene for the type of deadly instability that gripped the country in July last year. Decisive policymaking and diligent implementation are the only ways to confine 2021 to the dustbin of history.

(OMI)NOUS OR SIGNAL?

By: Darlene Creamer 10th December 2021 Given patchy global vaccination penetration and ongoing hesitancy at home, the emergence of a new Covid-19 variant was as inevitable as the fourth wave. Far less inevitable is the health risk posed by Omicron. Especially if there is stricter adherence to the proven nonpharmaceutical protocols and... →

RUNGS OF HELL

By: Darlene Creamer 3rd December 2021 South Africa’s deep electricity crisis has its genesis not in the past 18 months and not even in the past decade, although it was definitely made worse by the toxic State-capture years and maintenance neglect. The crisis can be traced back to policy and regulatory missteps that date all the way... →

MOVE ON

By: Darlene Creamer 26th November 2021 Despite the advanced age of Eskom’s coal fleet, coal power will remain a significant part of the domestic electricity mix for many years yet, with the new Medupi and Kusile stations having extended coal’s horizon by decades. South Africa should not be planning to build any new coal capacity,... →

ENERGY SAPPING

By: Darlene Creamer 19th November 2021 There is no quick fix for South Africa’s growth- and confidence-sapping bouts of load-shedding. The coal fleet has been run too hard for too long and maintenance neglected. South Africa’s stop/start procurement of new electricity means that the capacity needed to support stable operations amid... →

HARD HAT

By: Darlene Creamer 12th November 2021 Besides being known as the ultimate African National Congress insider, Enoch Godongwana, South Africa’s new Finance Minister, is also known for wearing homburg hats, often with the feather on the side. With his maiden Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement behind him, it appears that holding the... →

ENERGY SQUEEZE

By: Darlene Creamer 5th November 2021 Scottish rock band Stealers Wheel, sang about ‘Clowns to the left of me! Jokers to the right!’ in their 1970s hit song ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’. At the tail-end of 2021, South African consumers are equally stuck in the middle . . . of an energy crunch. With load-shedding to the left and... →

FLATTEN THE CURVE

By: Darlene Creamer 29th October 2021 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group 1 report, which assesses the physical science basis for climate change, points to a near-linear relationship between cumulative human-generated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the global warming they cause. The report also... →

LEAP OF LOGIC

By: Darlene Creamer 22nd October 2021 While President Cyril Ramaphosa was urging investors to embrace green energy and calling on rich countries to support developed country energy transitions with concessional finance, his Mineral Resources and Energy Minister was jumping to a very different conclusion. Gwede Mantashe said green... →

REGULATORY RUCTIONS:

By: Darlene Creamer 15th October 2021 The decision of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to reject Eskom’s revenue applications for the three-year period from 2022/23 to 2024/25 has created ructions. The decision is based on the fact that Nersa is reviewing the current methodology, which it says has failed to... →

NEW BARRIER

By: Darlene Creamer 8th October 2021 South Africans were rightly upset by the opaque, and seemingly non-scientific reasoning, behind the UK government’s recent decision to keep the country on its Covid Red List. The country’s exports could face similar seemingly unfair treatment as the European Union prepares to implement a tariffs... →

VOTER HESITANCY

By: Darlene Creamer 1st October 2021 Vaccine hesitancy is not the only form of hesitancy troubling South Africans. Many eligible voters are deeply uncertain about how best to exercise their November 1 municipal vote, despite chronic power, water, pothole, and refuse problems, as well as a never-ending stream of corruption scandals.... →

APP(Y) DAYS

By: Darlene Creamer 24th September 2021 With signs of waning vaccine uptake, South Africa is set to join a growing list of countries that require either digital or physical proof of vaccination before an individual can participate in certain activities. Since August, France has stipulated that a Passe Sanitaire QR-code is required for... →

VOTING FOR MANDATES

By: Darlene Creamer 17th September 2021 The announcement of South Africa’s municipal election date more or less coincided with Discovery’s announcement that the company intended moving to a mandatory Covid vaccination policy from January 1. The move will not make CEO Adrian Gore popular with everyone, especially in a context of ongoing... →

FISSI(ON) THE MENU

By: Darlene Creamer 10th September 2021 Moves to open the way for 2 500 MW of new nuclear capacity raises a menu of questions. If new nuclear is affordable, why is there no allocation for it in the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP)? If it’s designed to replace power from Inga, why is there not a broader IRP overhaul to test the least-cost... →

GATEWAY OR WALL

By: Darlene Creamer 3rd September 2021 South Africa’s ports have had a torrid two years: operations were hit hard during the early onset of the Covid-19 pandemic; the KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng riots rocked the N3 corridor and the Port of Durban; and Transnet was then hit by a debilitating cyber-attack. Even before these events,... →

NO TIME TO HESITATE

By: Darlene Creamer 27th August 2021 After an excruciatingly slow start and some bad luck, South Africa’s vaccination programme is no longer supply constrained. Demand, however, has become a new concern, with vaccine hesitancy the major cause. This is worrying for several reasons but is especially worrying from an economic... →

REAL RISK

By: Darlene Creamer 20th August 2021 Yes, supporters of former President Jacob Zuma deliberately planned and executed a strategy to destabilise the country when they initiated attacks on key economic infrastructure following his jailing in Estcourt. The deadly riots that followed, however, were sustained partly by the desperate... →

HACK WARNING

By: Darlene Creamer 13th August 2021 The recent cyber-attack on Transnet, which paralysed operations at the country’s ports only days after deadly rioting did likewise, was yet another warning of just how vulnerable the country’s economic infrastructure is to cyber-crime. All companies, but especially South Africa’s utilities, will... →

HORRIFYING REFLECTION

By: Darlene Creamer 6th August 2021 The recent insurrection, which triggered widespread and deadly violence and looting, was a test of both South Africa’s world-class Constitution and its maturing democracy. While both passed the test, it nevertheless reflected horribly on the country and its image as a stable and safe investment... →

BUILDING BACK

By: Darlene Creamer 30th July 2021 The three C’s of ‘conspiracy’, ‘conditions’ and ‘capacity’ combined toxically this month when South Africa witnessed deplorable scenes of deadly violence, theft and destruction. The conspirators had been plotting insurrection ever since Cyril Ramaphosa’s razor-thin 2017 Nasrec victory and were... →

RACE IS ON

By: Darlene Creamer 23rd July 2021 For South Africa to have any chance of extending its 2021 economic rebound into a full-blown multidecade recovery, an Olympian effort has to be made to vaccinate as many people as possible in as fast a time as possible. Much like the Covid-affected Tokyo Olympics, South Africa is in a real race.... →

DELTA BLOW

By: Darlene Creamer 16th July 2021 As the Delta variant blows through South Africa and many other countries, the good news is that the vaccines remain effective. The bad news is that South Africa’s slow pace of vaccination has left them unable to provide any meaningful protection against the third wave. Every effort now needs to... →

DELTA BLOW: As the Delta variant blows through South Africa and many other countries, the good news is that the vaccines remain effective. The bad news is that South Africa’s slow pace of vaccination has left them unable to provide any meaningful protection against the third wave. Every effort now needs to be made to ensure a rapid increase in the pace and scale of the vaccination drive, particularly as the supply constraints ease.

JABS & JOBS

By: Darlene Creamer 9th July 2021 There is little question that the mass Covid vaccination roll-out represents South Africa’s most important economic stimulus programme and will provide the foundation for job-creating investment. After a sluggish start and then some serious early setbacks, the programme is at last picking up... →

TRANSMISSION TRANSITION

By: Darlene Creamer 2nd July 2021 The creation, by year-end, of the Independent Transmission System and Market Operator, or ITSMO, is arguably the most important next reform required to align the electricity supply industry (ESI) with the unfolding energy transition. Without an efficient and, ultimately, fully independent... →

STEADY CLIMB

By: Darlene Creamer 25th June 2021 For years, South Africa has been promising reforms to stimulate growth, investment and jobs. Until this month, however, those pledges have not been translated into action. On June 10, President Cyril Ramaphosa took a big step when he announced a major electricity reform. A day later, Public... →

MONSTROUS CURVE

By: Darlene Creamer 11th June 2021 South Africa’s official unemployment rate increased to a terrifying 32.6% in the first quarter of 2021, the highest level since the report was introduced 13 years ago. On the expanded definition the picture is far worse, at 43.2%. Frighteningly, only 15-million of South Africa’s 39.5-million... →

MUSCULAR EFFORT

By: Darlene Creamer 4th June 2021 South Africa’s phased mass vaccination effort is finally under way, with health workers and people over 60 receiving priority under the initial stage of Phase 2. Success in scaling up the campaign so that the majority of the adult population is inoculated before year-end is now critical if a... →

PRICE GYRATIONS

By: Darlene Creamer 28th May 2021 The iron-ore price has come under the spotlight this month with both sharp daily gains and steep declines recorded. The volatility has led to questions about whether the iron-ore price is responding to super-cycle-type conditions, or whether it is simply riding a speculative roller-coaster. Time... →

WAVE WARNING

By: Darlene Creamer 21st May 2021 As South Africa faces a third Covid-19 wave, it’s crucial that we don’t let down our guard, despite the fact that we are all extremely tired of the living under ongoing restrictions. For now, mask wearing, physical distancing and hand hygiene remain our best defence ahead of a mass vaccination... →

WEIGHED DOWN

By: Darlene Creamer 14th May 2021 Opposition to the South African government’s awarding of preferred-bidder status to power ships as part of a recent electricity procurement bidding round continues to grow. Besides ongoing questions over whether it is technically, economically and environmentally sensible to be entering into... →

OWN GOAL

By: Darlene Creamer 7th May 2021 While football fans, especially in England, were angrily protesting a fatally flawed plan to create a closed-shop super league for a handful of elite European clubs, anger was growing in South Africa over the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP), which is... →

ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

By: Darlene Creamer 30th April 2021 South Africa is big on shiny new things, including mega infrastructure projects. The country is less big, however, when it comes to maintaining that infrastructure across its full life cycle. While the recent fire at Johannesburg’s Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital put a spotlight on... →

HIKES & LEVIES

By: Darlene Creamer 23rd April 2021 The fuel price and power tariff hikes implemented at the start of this month bring back painful memories of surging energy prices ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic. They have also placed the spotlight on the additional taxes and levies that are included in South Africa’s fuel prices, as well as the... →

END OF THE BEGINNING

By: Darlene Creamer 16th April 2021 There is no question that South Africa has been sluggish in its preparations for a mass vaccination campaign to combat the Covid-19 virus. Nevertheless, the ‘end of the beginning’ is at last in sight, with the procurement of sufficient doses of both the Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines to... →

DEBT SHEDDING

By: Darlene Creamer 9th April 2021 The unsustainable nature of Eskom’s debt profile is well known. Less clear, however, is what should be done about it. The State-owned utility has indicated on several occasions that it would be able to wean itself off of ongoing taxpayer support with a debt burden that is half the current level... →

ROCK & HARD PLACE

By: Darlene Creamer 2nd April 2021 The ‘Rockman’ statue at the entrance to Eskom’s Megawatt Park head office in Johannesburg exemplifies the current difficult reality facing the State-owned utility. While its maintenance efforts are likely to improve the performance of its coal fleet in the short-term, a good portion of that fleet... →

(LOCK)DOWN MEMORY LANE

By: Darlene Creamer 26th March 2021 “From midnight on Thursday 26 March until midnight on Thursday 16 April, all South Africans will have to stay at home,” President Cyril Ramaphosa declared on March 23 in the first of what subsequently became known as his Covid-19 ‘family meetings’. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that... →

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