When Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress came to
power almost three decades ago, South Africa was blessed with a surfeit of
electricity—a legacy of the apartheid regime’s obsession with self-reliance in the
face of crippling sanctions against its White supremacist rule.
The democratic government that replaced it prioritized
expanding access, electrifying 2.5 million predominantly Black households in
its first four years. The surplus from a fleet of coal-fired plants
was even tapped to light up homes in neighboring nations.
Today
some 86% of South African households are connected to the
grid, compared with 40% for Africa as a whole. But the good news ends
there. Those households go without electricity at least 10 hours a day on
average. It was apparent years ago that a lack of planning by ANC
governments, and their failure to build new plants while maintaining that
already in place, had hobbled the continent’s most-industrialized nation.
Now the consequences of the ANC’s inability to resolve its
power crisis are growing dire. As the world’s biggest economic powers
court Africa with an intensity unseen in decades—the leaders of both the
US and China are expected this year—South Africa risks being left in the
dark.
Brownouts
and blackouts aren’t the only challenges the nation faces. The
continent’s biggest freight rail network is crumbling, the country’s ports are
among the world’s most inefficient and crime is rampant.
South Africa’s foreign policy is also in disarray. Failing
to condemn Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and hosting naval
exercises with Russia angered key trading partners, including the US
and European Union. This month, the US ambassador accused the country of
allowing arms to be loaded onto a Russian ship at a military base.
For a nation that’s billed itself as Africa’s
leader—touting its role as the only African member of the Group of
20—South Africa is arguably starting to lose its position.
This
month, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
both visited Africa, but neither included South Africa on the itinerary.
And South African officials weren’t invited to this weekend’s
G-7 summit—for only the second time in six years. So who will be
there? The leaders of its emerging-market peers: Brazil, India,
Indonesia and Vietnam.
Much of South Africa’s decline comes back to the absence of
reliable electricity and the broader economic malaise it’s causing. The ANC’s
responsibility for the outages, which are not only a hindrance for households
but deter investment, can be traced back to around 2001, when the
national utility, Eskom, was told not to build new power plants.
The
government’s thinking was that new generation would be built by
private investors. The problem is they never came.
And while corruption and managerial neglect have also been
issues, there’s little evidence the policies that triggered the crisis
have changed.
President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed the country’s
first-ever electricity minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa two months ago.
But Ramaphosa has yet to give him any authority, leaving the minister to
conduct a series of tours to power plants and TV studios.
Authority
instead resides with the energy and public-enterprises ministers—strong
political allies of the president who have accomplished little.
The cost of procrastination is becoming clear. With
power cuts deepening into the South African winter, Rand Merchant
Bank recently reversed its prediction of 0.3% economic growth this
year, and now sees a 0.8% contraction. Even central bank
governor Lesetja Kganyago said this month the country was suffering
from largely self-inflicted wounds.
As the ANC is set to face its toughest-ever electoral test
in a year’s time, there have been some positive steps. Private companies are now
allowed to build generation plants of any size for their own use, and
municipalities are seeking supplies independent of Eskom.
But these moves will take time, and aren’t the hard
decisions needed to resolve the situation.
