Forgetful Mantashe blames global energy crisis for Eskom load-shedding

Energy minister Gwede Mantashe has suggested a strong correlation between South Africa’s constant rotational power cuts and the global energy crisis.

This is despite the worldwide energy crisis starting towards the end of 2021, where load-shedding has been a problem in South Africa since 2007.

He compared the energy crisis in South Africa to the constraints experienced in the EU since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, even though this only happened on 24 February 2022.

The US, UK, and EU placed sanctions on Russia following the invasion, and it responded by restricting gas supplies to countries like Germany.

According to S&P Global, the constraints experienced could persist for years.

“When you explain the [energy] crisis to society, South Africans see themselves as an island. The energy crisis is a global phenomenon. South Africans don’t accept that,” Mantashe told eNCA reporters.

“They think it’s a South African crisis.”

However, it is illogical to correlate load-shedding in South Africa with the global energy crisis. Eskom’s rotational power cuts were an issue long before Russia invaded Ukraine.

South Africa’s load-shedding is the result of ongoing corruption, theft, poor maintenance, incompetence, and sabotage.

In April 2022, Eskom’s current CEO André de Ruyter revealed that the power utility had to write off R1.3 billion in spare parts at the Tutuka power station because they couldn’t be tracked down.

He also said the power utility was aware of continued collusion between maintenance contractors and coal suppliers to sabotage its generation equipment.

Theft of spare parts means Eskom has to spend more money and often delays maintenance as it doesn’t have the spares on hand.

“We are also aware of collusion taking place between people with maintenance contracts, maintenance management, and coal suppliers in order to, for example, disrupt the operation of mills by adding very hard objects to the supply of coal into a mill,” he added.

While De Ruyter essentially took over a sinking ship, he has also failed to keep his promise of ending load-shedding by September 2021.

Load-shedding from 2007 to 2021

Rotational power cuts were first implemented in South Africa in 2007 when Eskom shed 176GWh of energy, according to CSIR data.

Eskom ramped up load-shedding significantly in 2008. However, these levels are almost negligible compared to the power cuts South Africa has experienced since 2019.

Eskom shed 476GWh of power in 2008, with South Africans having a reprieve from its rotational power cuts between 2009 and 2013.

Load-shedding picked up again in 2014 when Eskom shed 203GWh of power.

In 2015 South Africa’s rotational power cuts reached levels close to what South Africa has experienced over the past three years, with Eskom shedding over 1,300GWh of energy.

South Africa again had a reprieve from Eskom power cuts in 2016 and 2017, and the power utility only shed 192GWh of power in 2018.

However, things kicked up a notch from 2019 onwards, with Eskom shedding 1,352GWh, 1,798GWh, and 2,455GWh in 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively.

The CSIR’s data for the energy Eskom shed between 2007 and 2021 are summarised in the table below.

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