No development without electricity

THE supply of electricity is undoubtedly the paramount issue confronting South Africa. Besides the obvious fact that electricity is indispensable to modern life, as a political issue it is of decisive significance as historical precedents prove.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin understood the political significance of bringing electricity to farms and villages across Russia. Within three years of his seizure of power in 1917, an electrification commission produced a 500-page report detailing the construction of a network of 30 regional power stations. Bare light bulbs called “Ilyich lamps” suspended from the ceilings of peasants homesteads, symbolically conveyed a very tangible achievement of Lenin’s regime.

In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) recognised the value of electrification in alleviating America’s socio-economic depression. The Tennessee Valley project encompassing a million square kilometres across seven states saw the establishment of 25 dams which enabled the generation and distribution of electricity through 8 045km of transmission lines. Before the project, only two farms in the region out of 100 were electrified. By 1937 that had progressed to one in seven farms. Overall, FDR’s New Deal resulted in the electrification of eight out of every 10 farms in the US.

Energy security enhanced FDR’s political security. Re-elected to serve four terms as president he was unassailable. Without electricity stability the ANC cannot credibly propagate any positive development. That message should galvanise opposition parties, as Rob Hersov has urged, to promote viable solutions to our electricity crisis so as to rid South Africa of the ANC incubus in 2024.

DUNCAN DU BOIS | Bluff