POWERING ESWATINI BEYOND 2025

ENERGY is a critical component to economic growth, as such I must commend Eswatini Electricity Company’s commitment to power Eswatini beyond 2025. As we may all be aware of the fact that Eswatini imports over 75 per cent of her power needs from the Republic of South Africa, and that contract comes to maturity in 2025. Without power and energy none of our businesses would be able to stay afloat. Furthermore, an abrupt disruption in the power supply would be tantamount to a supply shock. The immediate effect would be felt through high consumer and producer prices. Short-term effects would be job losses; as companies readjust their production processes. The long-term impacts would be lower-than-expected economic growth. Looking at the developments on the cards, one cannot help but commend His Majesty’s government on spearheading a green energy revolution and opening the space for independent power producers.

Keeping the promise

In February, when the Finance minister tabled his budget, he made mention of the number of solar power projects and de-regulation of the space to allow independent power producers to supply the national grid. This will reduce strain on the national grid and reduce the amount of electricity that the country is importing from abroad. This is a rather sustainable methodology ensuring that Eswatini is able to keep the lights on, while empowering domestic producers and opening new markets for domestic power producers. It is commendable to see His Majesty’s government staying true to the course, ensuring that we are able to grow as a nation. It is imperative that as we push avenues for growth as a nation we are cognisant of the environmental costs, while at the same time ensuring that the growth is sustainable, meaning that future generations will also be able to benefit from the bounty of resources that we have as a country. In our pursuit of sustainable growth we ought to find the perfect balance between fossil fuels and green energy.

Fossils versus green energy

Sustainability requires that we grow the power grid through sustainable green solutions. However, in pursuit of short-term gains and trying to solve emergent problems, fossil fuels present a fast solution to our power problems. It makes sense, the whole world has been powered by fossil fuels for over millenia, a lot of research and development has been invested in the fossil fuel energy revolution. This has made the costs of setting up and maintenance relatively cheaper compared to green energy, which is still at formative stages of research and development. However, given the advances in technology and the amount of research that has gone into the green agenda, the costs of both energy sources are slowly converging. Forecasts show that as time progresses, in the next 25 years for example renewable energy will be relatively cheaper compared to fossil fuels. This requires that we are able to balance our growth and power plan as a nation. I raise this because there are plans to construct a thermal power plant. As a country we must be able to push energy sustainability with our growth prospects.

Independent power production

 It is imperative that we support our independent power generators to ensure that they supply the power producers to ensure that we are able to sustain the growth and ensure that we allow our people to benefit from the opening of the sector. We need to push bio-mass fuel production, this will enable households to subsist on their own energy needs, while at the same time, reducing the dependence on the national grid. This will enable the national grid to focus on supplying power largely to businesses in a sustainable manner. Furthermore, if the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy capacitates households on bio-mass energy, households would be better placed to deal with inflationary pressures and other cost of living pressures. We would be a nation of green individuals driving a sustainable growth agenda. Furthermore, this is a potential business for ordinary emaSwati and it has relatively low entry costs into to businesses. This will empower the most vulnerable of emaSwati, expanding livelihood options for a majority of our people. As we think of the energy transmission, we need to ensure that as we grow the economy and its different sectors we live no one behind. We need to carry all our people forward as we continue to grow the economy.

Inclusive growth

Powering Eswatini beyond 2025 should also be considered as an avenue to empower emaSwati. We need to change our thinking scope from thinking of our people as consumers to also considering our people as potential producers and we need to utilise all policy options available to ensure that we unlock that productive capacity of our people.As we commend the opening up of the sector for independent power producers we need to also think along the line of how we create alternative markets and alternative producers who would otherwise not benefit from these innovations. We need to craft our thinking along how we ensure that all emaSwati can find a role to play in both production and consumption.

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