The
S outhern C ross
April 22 to April 28, 2015
Reg No. 1920/002058/06
No 4921
www.scross.co.za
Survey: What SA Catholics say on Church and family
Special focus on Vocations Sunday
Page 8
Pages 10-12
R7,00 (incl VAT RSA)
Is Christianity a colonial religion?
Page 7
Today’s Eskom crisis has roots in 1987 decision BY STAFF REPORTER
E
SKOM’S opening of a marketing division in 1987 to sell off its surplus electricity has proved “highly consequential” to South Africa’s current energy problems, a Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office research paper has noted. The parastatal’s marketing department was created after it found that it had over-invested in infrastructure during the 1970s ‘80s, and that it had to revise its electricity demand projections. “Although it was engaged in building more power plants, a decision was taken to mothball or shut down older, less efficient power stations,” says the paper by researcher Palesa Ngwenya. “It was during this period that a seemingly inconsequential resolution was made to introduce a marketing division to Eskom. It in fact proved highly consequential to our current energy predicament” Eskom’s marketing team offered municipalities cut-price rates, provided that municipalities shut down their own power stations. Oil refineries were incentivised to use electrical energy, and off-peak tariffs were offered to people who could use power out of normal working hours. Farmers, who had for years used diesel generators, signed up to be connected to the grid. The marketing department made deals with smelters, mines and industrial steam consumers to switch to electricity. All were enticed with “dirt cheap power”. When apartheid ended in 1994 South Africa Eskom was tasked with electrifying the nation, with the aim of helping to rectify centuries of social inequality. By 1998, Eskom had shed capacity by closing older power stations and yet it had committed itself to supply on “a mammoth scale”, Ms Ngwenya said. Despite various projects coming online, such as Majuba in 1996, and some stations being de-mothballed, the country still needed new power stations to meet the power demands of post-apartheid South Africa. The government was warned in 1998 that investment was needed in new power stations, but it refused to provide the money,
something which former President Thabo Mbeki later apologised for. At the time that Eskom made the application for funding, the government was set on privatising it and other public utilities and selling them off to the highest bidder. This strategy, however, was never followed through. By the time new generation projects such Medupi and Kusile power stations were approved in 2005, it was already too late for the utility to guarantee sufficient supply to meet the growing anticipated demand. At a CPLO discussion in February on the energy crisis, Sisa Njikelana, chairman of the South African Independent Power Producers Association, said that a “Technical Implementation War-Room on the Electricity Crisis” had been established at Eskom. The government had resolved to implement a five-prong stabilisation plan, with interventions by Eskom to stabilise the system. The focus would be on raising the availability of its coal-fired plant to more than 80%, from its current 72%. Coal and cogeneration IPP procurement programmes would be launched by the end of January. Demand would be managed through “energy efficiency projects” within households, municipalities and commercial buildings. The load-shedding power blackouts, which have cost South Africa’s economy billions of rands, are not entirely Eskom’s fault and can be attributed to a failure to competently plan by parastatal and the government, Ms Ngwenya said in her paper. The fact that industrial players are offered confidential electricity prices which are substantially cheaper than average residential prices, “crystallises” the need for a more equitable, genuinely accountable system, she said. The possibility of allowing private electricity companies to compete with one another to provide cost-friendly and adequate electricity supply must be considered, the paper recommended. It also said that future plans must ensure that the energy sources must be chosen on sound scientific and commercial grounds, combining the best interests of people, the environment and the economy.
Vocations banner in the chancery of Cape Town. This year, April 26 is Vocations Sunday.
THE SAINTS OF ITALY PILGRIMAGE The Southern Cross & Radio Veritas present
Led by Fr EMIL BLASER OP
See the places of Saints Francis, Anthony of Padua, Catherine of Siena, John XXIII, John Paul II, Rita of Cascia, Pius X, Benedict, Charles Borromeo, Augustine, Peter the Apostle and many more...
PLUS PAPAL AUDIENCE!
For more info or to book phone Gail at 076 352 3809 or 021 551 3923 or e-mail info@fowlertours.co.za or visit www.fowlertours.co.za/saints-of-italy-2015/
Rome, Assisi, Florence, Siena, Padua, Milan, Venice and more 6 - 18 September 2015