LOOMING BLACKOUT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED

Reading the Times of Swaziland this week sent shivers down my spine; not because I was reading about the DA’s threat to cut off our electricity supply, but because this threat to the country’s energy crisis had been discussed earlier - 4 years earlier, to be exact - in 2010.

This was when the prospect of us being cut off was last mooted, as South Africa was battling with shutdowns and the repair of their power stations and so on. At that time, the FIFA World Cup was being threatened with blackouts in stadiums. The energy crisis was top of the agenda and Swaziland appeared to have gone into panic. This was the time the Ubombo Illovos of this world were seriously looking at power generation opportunities to sustain their needs and pass on the surplus to the national grid.

And that is what I call forward thinking, from a company that takes its business seriously. To this end, we hear this company has committed close to a billion Emalangeni to the power generation project. The Swaziland Electricity Company (SEC), the government organisation tasked with the generation and transmission of electricity, does not appear to have joined the frenzy but is continuing doing business as usual; the only unusual thing we hear from them is the exodus of executives.

SERA, the energy regulator, we hear has been considering applications for power generation and passed some that are now on the verge of commissioning work. Then there were the rumours of certain investors considering a thermal power station but the last we heard from them in many months was that they had made the observation that Maloma coal was too anthracitic to fire boilers and therefore unsuited for the power generation plant proposed.

Solar power is now on the cards and we have warned about the impending traffic jam from the 400 or so trucks descending on the hub, bringing components. Exciting news, good for employment, and independence in production of our own energy; but where is the action?
My take on all this is that Swaziland’s slow reaction to such matters is a setback to this nation. Government, as the shareholder of SEC, has not taken meaningful strides in pushing for self-sufficiency in energy.

Strategic

To demonstrate this, the Strategic Fuel Reserve appears abandoned if one has to go by what we hear about the American contractor pulling out of the work. Again, one cannot blame the contractor, who appeared to have been signed up under a cloud of controversy arising from a less-than-transparent tendering process.

Now we hear of the Democratic Alliance (DA) move in South Africa to push for the abrogation and termination of ESKOM’s contract to supply electricity to Swaziland. That motion, by the way, can succeed never mind that a contract subsists, because this matter is now being politicised. The timing of the DA motion is inopportune for us as it is happening at election time and, with May, 2014, around the corner, nothing could be worse. The DA stance on supplying the masses of SA and the business community that has to suffer endless load-shedding would definitely get everyone’s support. And there is a real danger that not even the ruling party would want to be seen to be going against this, as they would risk votes that way. Common sense dictates that SA would want to honour undertakings made by ESKOM until 2024; but the tide of political correctness could be much too strong to turn. At least, this is my take on this and, for our sakes, I hope I am wrong.

Whether The Blackout happens this year or in 2024, I think Swaziland needs to move decisively in attaining self-sufficiency in power generation; a thing that would make us independent and create a serious number of jobs. This could be the opportunity to revitalise and grow our economy. While I am not schooled on what it would take in investment terms to generate 800GWh, it seems to me it would be huge.

Yet here is an import substitution that is feasible and viable, as we would be producing to meet a real need. As for investment into this programme, US President Barack Obama, in June of 2013, at the University of Johannesburg, announced the Africa Power programme which America, through USAID, has pioneered and championed, to light up Africa and give us cheaper sources of energy. To this end he committed US$7bn (E77bn) as grants, loans and guarantees to African nations embarking on generation programmes.

In order  to make this substantial, he appealed to international investors and venture capitalists to match every dollar the Americans were pledging, raising a further US$14bn (E154bn) - giving a whopping E231bn for this programme. This funding, unfortunately, is not without conditions or covenants such as democratisation and a corruption-free government. That is where I feel we need to do a little bit of work to qualify; especially if we are still grappling with qualifying for AGOA renewal. 

My parting note would be that it is time to go into overdrive on the power generation programme for Swaziland, because waiting for the right moment will never come. Napoleon Hill once said: “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right”. And indeed, it won’t.

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