Government scores another major own goal

The national government has scored another own goal by bungling the Electricity Regulation Act Amendment Bill – a crucial piece of legislation needed to resolve South Africa’s destructive energy crisis and end load shedding.

The bill is an urgent piece of legislation that is central to the efforts to solve the electricity crisis. It will allow for the creation of a Transmission System Operator to manage the national grid and procure electricity from a competitive market.

It is key to attracting the investment needed to expand the capacity of the grid and will create a level playing field for all generators of electricity, both private and public.

“This is the fastest way to get new electricity onto the grid at the lowest cost,” said Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) chief executive, Busi Mavuso.

“There are now considerable risks that the bill will not be made law before the end of the year, and even possibly before elections next year.”

According to Mavuso, it was revealed last week that an administrative error in processing the bill stopped it in its tracks, causing massive delays.

Due to apparent administrative bungling, the bill has not been properly tabled at parliament by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, so it has not started the process through committees to become law.

“The bill was approved by cabinet in March, and the delays are inexplicable and unacceptable,” Mavuso said.

While a new bill was properly tabled last week as soon as the problems come to light, it was improperly submitted in April. Had it been done correctly then South Africa would be much further down the road to solving the electricity crisis, she said.

“The Mineral Resources and Energy Committee in parliament already has a full agenda making it difficult to process the bill through required public consultations in time for the year-end break. While the DMRE did not submit the bill properly, it is also inexplicable to me why parliament did not raise the alarm earlier. It leaves me feeling like neither is taking the electricity crisis seriously enough.”

The CEO said that the own goal and subsequent delays suggest that there are silos within the government that are not united in solving the country’s pervasive energy crisis. This is further frustrating efforts made by organised business and the private sector, which have been trying to work with the government to resolve the crisis.

“For businesses to continue to invest their energy into partnering with the government to resolve the crisis, we need confidence that such bungles will not happen. We need to see the institution of government holding people accountable when agreed actions are not taken, just as we would see in business,” she said.

Mavuso added that some business leaders are starting to feel taken advantage of, spending time and resources to work on the energy crisis without the prospect of positive and necessary outcomes due to the government’s failings.

“The frustration over the ERA Bill misstep is largely because it is so unnecessary. It is purely a bureaucratic bungle, not one born from the complexity of achieving policy reform. But it has revealed that certain parts of the government are just not serious about delivering the change we need,” she said.

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