Politics.za

Considering the massive uproar over a loose bolt in Koeberg’s nuclear reactor, I’m suprised there isn’t complete outrage that a bunch of thieves managed to force their way into the control room at SA’s other nuclear facility at Pelindaba. Now, while nothing catastrophic could have happened (when people hear ‘nuclear’ they immediately picture a mushroom cloud rising over Pretoria) the fact is that Pelindaba should be locked down extremely tight.

Funding a political party in South Africa is an expensive business. It’s estimated the ANC spent R100 million alone in the last national elections which is much much more than the amount the ANC earns from it’s members, who pay R12 a year in membership dues. We know political parties receive funding from other sources particularly massive donations, such as the R25 million given to the ANC (and R500 000 to the DA) by Brett Kebble. Because SA has no laws requiring political parties to disclose their funding, which both the ANC and DA prefer for differing reasons, we have no real idea of exactly who is secretly buying favour.

Which is why the $2 billion deal between SA’s Chancellor House and Russia’s Azot to build a new fertiliser plant in SA stinks to high heaven and it’s definitely not due to the fertiliser. Chancellor House was originally uncovered as an ANC fundraising front by the Mail & Guardian and the Financial Mail covered them in January and found them to be a particularly shady one at that. Even ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe was unaware of their presence but later admitted to it’s role as an “ANC vehicle”.

Now this deal stinks because it the first deal to emerge from the newly established SA-Russia Business Council and coincidentally this deal involves a company that does not only have close ties to the ANC, it is for all intents and purposes the ANC itself. ANC PR spokesman Smuts Ngonyama has denied that there is anything suspicious about the deal and claims that Chancellor House has nothing to do with the ANC despite Motlanthe’s earlier admission about Chancellor House.

Here’s a few quotes from Alec Erwin from a talk given at the University of Pretoria referring to Eskom’s lack of power generation capacity leading us to a a few years of intermittent blackouts:

All of us have recently experienced the almost soul-searing shock that Eskom is not absolutely infallible… and that is a lesson that time and time again virtually every major enterprise in South Africa is going to learn in the next few years

The main obstacle to our own success is our own minds. We have to be confident we have to think hard about growth.

There’s only one small teeny tiny detail he’s left out and that’s the fact that between 2001 and 2004 the National Energy Regulator expressly forbid Eskom to build any new power generation plants despite their repeated requests to do so. But of course major governmental blunders like that are no one’s fault.

The electricity supply crisis will not be getting better for at least another five years, with our reserve generating capacity being less than half of what it should be. Eskom plans to spend R97 billion rand over the next five years to bring our reserves up to the benchamrk 15% reserve capacity.

The cause of this complete balls up can be laid squarely at the feet of government, specifically the cabinet, who barred Eskom from building any new power plants from 2001 – 2004 although one must wonder why Eskom didn’t start furiously building power plants after 2004. Cabinet barred Eskom from building new plants in the hope of attracting private investors, but they didn’t do much else besides that. So much for the efficiency of central planning.

The electricity landscape is quite uncertain with some municipalities (such as Cape Town) buying power via Regional Electricity Distributors (who are always being threatened with closure) and others buying direct from Eskom or other third parties. With the enormous capital outlay required to build power stations you can understand why private investors didn’t swoop in.

Unfortunately this is not the only area where government has made a decree and then sat back to watch nothing else happen. After Telkom lost their “official” fixed line monopoly (which still exits for all intents and purposes) it took five years before anyone was prepared to invest in a competitor and they only did so with significant government investment as well (Neotel is 30% state owned).

I wonder which industry will be next to suffer the stellar planning of cabinet.

Following Chinese Premier Ju Jintao’s African state tour, the Chinese media is hailing the trip and promising that

China is pursuing a mutually beneficial relationship with Africa, in contrast to the West’s colonial exploitation of the continent

It’s tough to take that at face value when cheap Chinese imports made with near slave labour has already put at a minimum 40 000 South African textile workers out of job.

Let’s be clear here. If China could they would strip mine Africa bare. Every country on this planet makes sure their own interests are taken care of first and in China’s case it’s interests are getting cheap resources so they can continue to produce cheap goods and then sell them back to us.

Cape Town is being subjected to power cuts again except this time the problem is not localised and is extending right across the country. The cause is once again Koeberg nuclear power station where one of the two generators tripped and shut down around 2:18am.

Despite a growing economy (and the growinf demand for power that comes with it) no new power generating plants have been built in SA well over 10 years. SA has pinned it’s hopes on the pebble bed modular nuclear reactor but that is still in it’s infancy and the prototype won’t be built for a few more years yet alone the 20 or so envisaged reactors that will be built round the country.

There are two things that are a bit disconcerting. First of all that all it takes for Eskom’s network to fall over is for a single power station to lose half it’s generating capacity. That’s a big indication that there is no redundancy or excess power generating capacity left. Secondly Eskom is stretching to meet it’s requirements in summer which doesn’t make it look to good when winter rolls around and energy usage goes up.

We await Minister of Public Enterprse Alec Erwin’s claims of “sabotage!” soon.

I always like headlines that downplay a fact. Like this one from business report:

SA mulls nuclear power options

I don’t think we’re ‘mulling’ nuclear power options when we’ve basically bet the entire country’s future energy needs on it.

Months after the power outages at Koeberg nuclear power plant plunged the Cape into darkness no one has been found responsible for the mysterious bolt that found it’s way into the generator turbines. Until now. It seems it was…

THE FRENCH

Grab your pitchforks and torches! We can be in Paris for some ‘retribution’ by Monday evening!

About three weeks ago we reminded Alec Erwin that the investigation into the bolt mischief at Koeberg was taking a bit too long. Well the good Minister has taken our words to heart can report that yes… investigations are still ongoing at the ‘appropriate agency’. Just to put everyone’s minds at ease.

I don’t know what concerns me more though. A bolt in a generator or an ‘appropriate agency’ that takes 4 months to review CCTV footage and interview the dozen or so people who have access to the reactor. Maybe it’s not high on the priority list?

On the 28th of February 2006 you said the following in relation to the rolling power blackouts that hit Cape Town earlier that year:

The investigation is ongoing and we will bring criminal charges against individuals soon

Well looking at my desk calendar I notice it’s almost two months since you said that and I’m not seeing any arrests being made. So either the investigation:

• is ongoing which means it’s taken that long to interview the few people who had access to the reactor and review security camera footage, which is pitiful on such a high profile and important case.
• is finished with no arrests being made and therefore was bungled.
• never really existed in the first place and you were trying to cover your behind for ignoring the warnings about South Africa’s energy crunch that were right in front of you.