What’s scarier than stage six?
In the absence of any hiring, firing or rewiring at Eskom, ethekwini’s decided on a glow-inthe-dark Chernobyl by the coast
Thursday. Like the majority of my fellow South Africans, I’m baffled by the decision of the president to return home early from abroad just to hold a virtual cabinet meeting to discuss the latest Eskom crisis.
Baffled, but not shocked — that would require electricity, after all — by yet another act of performative governance by our commander-in-chief.
When I heard that President Cyril Ramaphosa was coming home, I had hoped for a major intervention — or at least an announcement — from the head of state, given that he had failed to get any diamonds from our former colonial oppressers while in the United Kingdom for Queen Elizabeth II’S funeral.
I should have known better, but I’d hoped for Cyril to actually do something — some firing, hiring and rewiring at the state electricity reticulator; a board shake-up; some movement at cabinet level; some form of policy pivot — when he got back, rather than him behaving like he was still abroad.
All we have, thus far, is a couple of paragraphs from the Government Communication and Information Service (GCIS) telling us what we already know — the lights are out and nobody’s home at Eskom — literally and figuratively — and there’s
no plan to get them back on any time in the near future.
That, and a tweet or two.
We’ve heard more on the matter from former president Thabo Mbeki — and Carl Niehaus and Matshela Koko — since the president got home than we have from the sitting head of state, who appears powerless when it comes to wielding his power and restoring power to the populace.
Perhaps the president had lost his ipad again and had no means of holding a virtual meeting from the United Nations General Assembly, and had no choice but to come home to talk to the comrades in his cabinet.
There is also the possibility that the president may have forgotten something under his mattress at home — or in the wardrobe — when
he left for the airport and might have returned as soon as he remembered to avoid somebody making off with it.
It’s happened before.
Right now, it appears that the president should have stayed where he was — or at least brought us back some candles, or a windmill or two — given the amount of impact his return has had thus far.
The provincial administrations and municipalities around our fair republic have, in the face of the collapse of Eskom, started coming up with their own plans to generate electricity, something which should have happened a long time ago. Some are good.
Others, not so much.
Here in the kingdom, the ethekwini metropolitan council has gone nuclear — literally — in the face of the move to stage six of load-shedding.
The city plans to generate power by a variety of means — including 300 megawatts from offshore windfarms and another 50MW from hydropower — and hopes to get the first projects, involving liquid natural gas, moving by 2025.
According to a presentation by the city’s head of energy transition on 13 September, Durban plans to secure 940MW of nuclear power as part of its package of plans to generate energy, with the aim of generating 2 600MW collectively by 2035.
The energy plan is not specific about where the nuclear power will come from, which is a little on the strange side, given that the city can’t exactly buy a nuclear plant at Makro or Builder’s Warehouse.
Perhaps there’s a demonstration model kicking around the Zululand hills from when the Russians were bidding to provide us with nuclear power, back when Jacob Zuma was president, waiting to be paid for and plugged in.
Perhaps the city wants to build its own Chernobyl — sort of a glow-inthe-dark Moses Mabhida Stadium — as a way of drawing the tourists, given that the beaches may still be closed in December.
That will be a laugh, especially when the “business forums” in the city get wind of another opportunity to force their way into 30% of the budget at gunpoint.
I can’t wait.
The municipality has since denied planning to take the nuclear route, saying it is not in line with its energy transition policy, adopted last June, or the province’s strategy, concluded earlier this year.
Perhaps the city’s head of energy transition didn’t get the memo — there has been load-shedding after all — when he made the presentation last week.
Let’s hope he gets it, eventually. Right now, the city’s beaches are closed because the sewage pump stations are broken; there are no working rubbish trucks and the lights are off more often than they’re on, so the idea of ethekwini getting its hands on a nuclear power station terrifies me way more than the thought of another 15 years of load-shedding.
Here in the kingdom, the ethekwini metro council has gone nuclear – literally – in the face of [blackouts]