Pretoria - Economic Modelling Academy director, Pali Lehohla has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to demand an apology and answers from the International Partner Group nations that “misled” South Africa into abandoning coal in order to bring an end to greenhouse emissions.
This follows the public outrage that ensued when the National Energy Regulator of South Africa gave the nod for Eskom to increase electricity tariffs by 18.65%, while the nation continues to experience the dark due to indefinite blackouts.
Ramaphosa has earned the ire of academics and activists who fail to understand how he could possibly justify signing the so-called Just Energy Transition deals with developed countries that continued to rely on coal.
During the COP27 summit, held at Sharm El-Sheikh International Convention Centre in Egypt last November, Ramaphosa committed South Africans to a multimillion-dollar debt scheme that would see the country abandon coal in pursuit of renewable energy.
South Africa’s “green partners” include France, the US, the UK, Germany and the EU.
According to former statistician-general Lehohla, it appears Ramaphosa was misled.
“Germany has shown the world what has to be done. The president should ask his counterparts why they misled him… ‘You said that I should dump coal, but when you started using it again you should have told me’.
“If the president doesn’t ask those questions, load shedding will remain a problem. He should get those answers and come back to the nation and say ‘I have been badly misled. I thought I have been dealing with honourable people, a just process for just transition negotiation’,” said Lehohla.
Lehohla labelled Ramaphosa’s recent apology for load shedding “pyrrhic”.
“His apology will remain pyrrhic until he demonstrates to the nation that he was misled. If you don’t demand answers, the bush will burn you.
“To begin with, why didn’t he ask questions or solicit advice before entering into the deals? He must show what his position is. They still invite him to sign deals.
“He must be able to say, ‘You are betraying me. I have taken my country up this route, (but) you have shown me how much of a scam this is. You just left me’. If he doesn’t publicly say so, questions will arise,” Lehohla said.
He said Ramaphosa’s apology would have made sense if he was new to Eskom’s woes.
“The president was there at the war room when he was deputy president. The war room looked at long-term solutions to load shedding. It was even declared that load shedding was history,” he said.
Lehohla also touched on the continued Eskom deficit, proposing the unpopular strategy to use pensions to revive the entity without incurring future foreign debt.
“We cannot run away from the fact that the pension funds can assist the country.
“Deal with the thieves because in the end we make loans and they steal those loans and our country is in permanent debt that future generations will not be able to deal with,” Lehohla said.
Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya did not respond to media questions on the matter.
Meanwhile, DA leader John Steenhuisen has expressed frustration after he failed to attend a virtual meeting with Ramaphosa due to load shedding.
“Unlike ministers, we don’t have generators and free electricity. I’m still waiting to see if he is going to agree to a one-on-one meeting that I asked for in a letter I sent last week,” said Steenhuisen.
Pretoria News