Minister Mantashe must go
4 June 2021
The decision by the Pretoria High Court to declare that the environmental approval for the 600MW Khanyisa coal-fired power station in Mpumalanga has expired must surely drive the final nail into the coffin of an electricity generation future based on coal. This comes shortly after the 630MW Thabametsi coal-fired plant in Limpopo failed to reach financial closure. Add in the fact that Eskom’s overall Energy Availability Factor (EAF – essentially the performance of the state-owned enterprise’s generation facilities) had dropped to an all-time record low of 64%, and South Africa has the makings of a perfect storm in its electricity supply.
With global finance houses withdrawing support for coal-based electricity generation, the time is opportune for South Africa to aggressively pursue alternative solutions to our electricity crisis. Minister Gwede Mantashe continues to be a handbrake on our economy and our electricity generation sector. Yesterday, President Ramaphosa again indicated his support for increasing the threshold for licencing of generation plants beyond the arbitrary 10MW limit Mantashe seems so determined to implement (and one which he has told parliament is informed by a “survey” of 10 000 respondents).
The DA believes that the following steps must be implemented as a matter of urgency, to save our economy and our country:
Raise the licencing threshold for generation facilities to 50MW;