Is the Just Energy Transition at the expense of an entire province?

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JEREMY MAGGS: A warm welcome and let’s get started with this, is South Africa’s Just Energy Transition [Jet] just. It’s a philosophical question and one just before the weekend, but let’s try and answer it with the person who raised it in the first place. Lungile Mashele is an independent energy economist. So Just Energy Transition is a move towards renewable solutions. It’s an important component in terms of the energy mix and the energy change in South Africa. I’m wondering why you’ve seen fit to raise the issue.

LUNGILE MASHELE: So we find ourselves at a precipice as a country. We have the highest levels of unemployment, highest levels of inequality in the world. We also have a persistent energy crisis and we have had one for the last 15 years. We are now talking about transitioning to cleaner fuels of energy, which is commendable.

However, you then have an entire province of Mpumalanga, which is reliant on coal, and in order for this transition to happen, it means that these coal-fired plants, the coal mines, are going to have to shut down.

The question then becomes, are we doing this for the intended benefits of that community? How is that community going to benefit and more importantly, is it just for us to transition at the expense of an entire province?

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JEREMY MAGGS: So essentially, if I’m hearing you correctly, it’s a debate about the interests of a community in the short term versus long-term environmental concerns. Are you suggesting then that it’s a difficult choice, but the latter needs to take a backseat right now?

LUNGILE MASHELE: It definitely is a difficult choice and transitioning has to happen. It is happening and it’ll continue to happen. The real issue is around the scale and the pace that it is happening at number one, but also the motivation behind it. As we’re seeing with government over the last year or so, there are different sections that are saying, why are you doing this transition? What is driving it?

You have government ministers questioning this transition on a daily basis.

Then you’ve got people who are directly affected in these communities hearing all this noise coming from these different sectors and they’re saying, excuse me, I’m sitting here and I’m unemployed. You’ve made all of these decisions. It’s a year before elections. I’m not sure if you’re saying this for electioneering purposes or if you genuinely meant that me and my family are not going to have a livelihood moving forward.

It’s this noise that is spurring on these unfortunate incidents that we are finding in mining and in those energy communities linked to the coal bed in Mpumalanga.

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JEREMY MAGGS: So your argument would then suggest that we need a new transition strategy. What would that look like?

LUNGILE MASHELE: So not even new, Jeremy. We actually just need a transition strategy and a plan. Currently you have the Komati Power Station, which is being repurposed and we’re going to use that as a pilot, and there are already questions about the feasibility of that. All we’re simply saying is that you need to have a long-term plan and a strategy for that region. Something that addresses the technical nature.

So one, where’s the energy going to come from? Because you can’t just simply say, I’m going to swap out coal megawatts with renewable megawatts. They are not equal. You also need to say socially, what am I going to do for those people?

Mpumalanga is famous for two things, coal and tourism. If you take away coal, what is the long-term plan for that area? What other industries are you going to be bringing in to revive the economy?

We certainly don’t want another Witbank or another Randfontein or another Kimberley. So how do we prevent that from actually happening? How do we address the youth unemployment issue that is in Mpumalanga? How do we address the inequality issues that are in Mpumalanga?

Mpumalanga is one of the closest provinces to Gauteng. On any given month, Gauteng receives about 30 000 new people coming to live here, no doubt from other provinces, but Mpumalanga also.

How do we slow that growth? How do we keep people where they are and keep them economically active? Looking at the economics of it all, if you are taking away an industry that basically employs 90 000 direct workers and then you have a multiplier effect also, what are you going to replace it with? Currently government has not put on the table any such plan.

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JEREMY MAGGS: Do you think it’s too late at this point to change the thinking, to change the direction, particularly when it comes to an entity like Komati?

LUNGILE MASHELE: Absolutely not, it’s not too late at all but transparency is what is needed now more than anything. You have politicians who mentioned Komati and I’m not entirely sure if it’s a genuine concern or if we are heading towards elections now and they want to be seen to be saying the right thing. But you also have the community that is speaking out and they’re saying, please restart Komati because the replacement that you’ve provided is not providing enough training opportunities, it’s not providing enough job opportunities.

Our children are going hungry, and they’ve had to leave this area, leave us and go work in Johannesburg.

So it’s a quick rethink about how can we position this to be a success story eventually. Naturally it’s going to need funding, it is going to need some political will and political push, but it’s going to need private sector to also come up with innovative ideas to say how can we keep this particular area active?

It starts with Komati but then it starts moving on and eventually you’ve got the whole of Mpumalanga that will be affected in exactly the same way.

JEREMY MAGGS: So very quickly, how do you convince the private sector and for that matter, a very vocal green lobby?

LUNGILE MASHELE: So there are extensive incentives to be involved in this space. You are looking at providing a solution for millions of people in the Mpumalanga area. Mpumalanga, yes, I had said has coal and has tourism, but they also have other forms of mining. They’ve got agriculture as well.

How do we mix all of that to provide sustainable solutions for those people, not just for jobs but for training and for education? Are we considering this even at an early childhood development stage? Remember that children who grew up in that area were trained to work in those mining areas. What are we training today’s children to address in 2040?

JEREMY MAGGS: I’m going to leave it there. Lungile Mashele, thank you very much indeed.