Who's interest is best being served here?

[bekdik]

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx...ght__national/

In the midst of a national grid meltdownwhich closed the mining industry, BHP Billiton’s three aluminium smelters, powered entirely by Eskom, were up and running -- despite being some of South Africa’s greediest energy guzzlers. And the government appears determined to press ahead with establishing another massive smelter, the Rio Tinto Alcan plant, at Coega in the Eastern Cape. The combined energy consumption of BHP Billiton’s smelters -- the Hillside and Bayside plants in Richard’s Bay and the Mozal plant in Mozambique -- and the proposed Rio Tinto/Alcan smelter, will total 3 750MW.

Load shedding in recent weeks hastypically run at about 3 000MW, while the proposed Medupi power station in Limpopo will create 4 700MW of generating capacity at a cost of R79-billion. Billiton says its plants employ a total of 10 000 workers, including contractors, while the Coega smelter will create 1 000 permanent jobs in addition to 6 000 jobs in the construction phase, according to Earthlife Africa. The total mining industry workforce stands at about 400

Can we afford to have a single entity raping our resources to this extent? Not only are we, the citizens, being ground down with debilitating power cuts and price increases, but these guys are paying a pittance, use as much as they like and collect their profits overseas! We, the citizens, are not allowed to move our money overseas even if we had enough so to do!

What the hell is going on here? Who are the REAL piggies with their snouts in the trough?

[air]

fwiw - I'm no aware of all the facts so take with a wheelbarrow of salt - I agree, an entity that saps approx. 10% of total SA power capacity and only employs 10K workers, freaking shocking. So all those small business who employ millions of people are at risk for this one company. Madness!

[ToxicBunny]

It all boils down to who can pay the ppl the biggest bribes.. and the small businesses can't match the big boys... so the big boys win.

[Moederloos]

To answer the question posed in the thread title: The ANC's.

Simple - since they are in charge and allow this to continue, there must be a direct benefit to them.

[Ozymandias]

JP Morgan analysts said the heavy power needs of the Coega could come under scrutiny as supply problems persist.

“Questions could be asked about the wisdom of allocating the equivalent of almost half a new power station to provide subsidised electricity to a new aluminium smelter that creates limited numbers of jobs and where the profits are exported,” the investment bank said in a research note on Friday.

The Rio Tinto Alcan smelter to be built at Coega for R20-billion with South Africa paying R12-billion of this because Alcan is only willing to foot 40% of establishment costs. Add to this another R20-billion for the cost of building and supplying power to the smelter. Again, add to this the sale of electricity to Alcan below Eskom's production costs. Adding it all up, it doesn't look as though South Africa's interests are being served here.

The whole Coega project is inextricably linked to the arms deal. The German consortium won the contract for the 4 SA Navy corvettes despite the Spanish company, Bazan, bidding R1-billion below the Germans. The deal was justified because the Germans promised to offset their higher costs by investing R6-billion into Coega by building two stainless-steel mills. The Germans failed to deliver on this commitment and to avoid the imposition of fines, suddenly announced an intention to invest R1.8 billion in a stainless steel precision strip in Coega – a full sixty months after they first made the commitment to do so.

It appears that the government is desperate to keep the whole Coega scheme alive even if the Alcan project is more beneficial to outsiders than it is to South Africa. The Coega steel and aluminium plants are being dressed up as inward investment but it increasingly looks as though we are footing the bill.