News in South Africa 19th December:
1. Severe water shortages:
Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu, has pleaded with residents of Gauteng to reduce their water consumption as the water supply remains vulnerable to disruptions and may not be able to meet demand, resulting in shortages.
Johannesburg and its surrounds have been hit by severe water cuts so far in 2023, and while water interruptions have been happening for years, they have been scaled up dramatically in recent weeks.
The deteriorating situation recently forced the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu, to intervene.
On 27 September, he announced a new initiative called “water-shifting” to deal with the shortages.
Yesterday, in Parliament, Mchunu urged residents in Gauteng to limit their water consumption as the relationship between supply and demand is “very tight”.
“The system is vulnerable to disruptions caused by heavy load-shedding, electromechanical breakdowns or theft of cables,” Mchunu said.
“Usually, such breakdowns would not have a noticeable effect on water supply due to the ability to draw on reserve supply capacity. But now, there is no reserve supply capacity.”
Mchunu said that because water is gravity-fed from reservoirs to households, high-lying areas are the worst affected.
Demand for water in Gauteng has grown rapidly as its population has grown, and very little investment has been made to increase water supply.
Furthermore, up to 50% of the water from the bulk supplier, in this case, Rand Water, is lost before it reaches the end consumer due to leakages and other infrastructure failures.
Recently, Rand Water COO Mahlomola Mehlo said that water supply during the festive season cannot be guaranteed.
Mehlo explained that water supply is based upon the resource’s abstraction, purification, and distribution. All three are dependent on electricity.
If the electricity supply cannot be guaranteed, neither can the water supply to all areas.
Rand Water has plans to mitigate the effects of power outages, and its facilities are exempt from load-shedding.
The main problem is its old infrastructure, which is deteriorating and making it increasingly difficult to get water to the end consumer.
Mehlo stressed that this is a countrywide issue and not unique to Rand Water.
“If you consider all the variables at play and those that we have to manage and keep in check, at any given time, one of those variables can fail us,” Mehlo said.
“The incidents of the recent weeks have actually shown us that there are no guarantees in the provision of water, especially during this period. What I can guarantee is every effort is being made to ensure that we do not experience such.”
The areas most likely to be affected will be the high-lying parts of Gauteng as they require boosting stations to pump water up to them, making them more vulnerable to infrastructure failure and reliant on reliable electricity.
In short, there is no water shortage as the country’s dams are full. The issue is the inability to get water from bulk suppliers to the end consumer.
2. Crumbling SA railways:
Botswana has received unsolicited bids from investors to build a rail line to a Namibian port that will help avoid South Africa and its disintegrating logistics network.
The 1 500 kilometre Trans-Kalahari Railway project is gathering momentum as Transnet, the state rail and ports monopoly in Botswana’s southern neighbour, struggles to ship goods, according to Transport and Public Works Minister Eric Molale.
“We learned in June that the waiting period at all South Africa ports to offload and load can be a minimum of two weeks, floating on the sea for that period,” he said in an interview Monday in Gaborone, the capital. “The UAEs, the Qataris, the Chinese, the Indians have also come to say this is not a long line for them and it is in fact, a comparatively short one that they can do very quickly.”
Transnet has become one of the biggest drags on South Africa’s economy and, along with power outages, resulted in a surprising contraction in growth in the third quarter. Snarled transportation also has the potential to crimp expansion in neighbouring countries, including landlocked Botswana, one of the world’s biggest diamond producers and a major beef exporter that relies on South Africa for most of its trade.
An alternative route may also attract companies in South Africa, offering shorter travel than to the nation’s own ports, Molale said.
Coal shipments on Transnet freight-rail network have plunged to 30-year lows and iron-ore railings are at their lowest in a decade. Port gridlock has led to delays to the loading and offloading of ships and some fashion retailers have resorted to flying in apparel.
“We see ourselves as best placed especially for companies in the Johannesburg, Pretoria area of Gauteng because either way, going west or east, they cover the same distance and some of them, like vehicle manufacturers, have come to us,” the minister said.
The line would run from Gaborone, through the Kalahari desert to Gobabis in Namibia and Walvis Bay on the Atlantic Ocean.
Nations in the region are seeking ways to better get their goods to global markets. The US is backing a rail line from the copper and cobalt mines in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Lobito in Angola, while China’s government selected a state-owned company to negotiate a concession to operate a railway connecting Zambia with the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam.
Copper and cobalt are important minerals in the global transition to cleaner fuels.
Botswana and Namibia set up a bi-national project office in 2015 to push the project. According to its website, 12 companies submitted expressions of interest last month. A request for proposals will be released in March and construction is due to begin in January 2025.
“There is a lot of money out there in the world and unsolicited bids have been coming in,” Molale said.
3. NHI steals freedom:
The National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill is incoherent, unconstitutional, and will limit people’s access to healthcare. It is also highly unlikely to be implemented.
This is the warning from Professor Alex van den Heever from the Wits Social Security Systems Administration and Management studies.
Van den Heever’s comments followed the National Council of Provinces passing the NHI Bill at a sitting in Cape Town.
The NHI seeks to ensure all South Africans have access to quality healthcare services and provide for establishing a fund for this purpose.
The NHI fund will be used to pay for almost all treatment from accredited providers, with rates to be set by the state.
Private medical aid providers can only pay for products and services the fund does not cover.
Van den Heever said while universal healthcare is a noble objective, it should not prevent people from covering themselves.
He said the plan to create one system to serve everyone in the country has not been done anywhere and is unfeasible in a developing economy.
“The NHI Bill is incoherent and is inconsistent with equity and coherent institutional design. It is just not going to happen,” he said.
He added that the ruling ANC knows the NHI will not happen, so they say it will take a very long time to implement.
He added that the NHI Bill is unconstitutional as it undermines people’s right to choose healthcare.
“There is nothing wrong with somebody purchasing their own healthcare at the level at which they want to, as long as it does not affect another person’s healthcare,” he said.
“We do it in education and housing. We implemented no framework in South Africa that prohibits you from using private services when public services are available.”
For example, people can not be stopped from using private security when there is a public police force to protect them.
Van den Heever said it makes no sense to implement a law to prohibit you from paying for private healthcare should you desire.
World-renowned economist Thomas Sowell said it is not up to the state to decide what a person needs or doesn’t need.
If a person has the money to pay for something, they should be free to buy what they want, including healthcare.
The NHI Bill will restrict a person’s choice because it will control the full healthcare system in the country.
For example, if the state healthcare system decides you don’t need a certain procedure, you cannot pay for it privately.
It, therefore, severely restricts your choice and access to healthcare, which is unlikely to pass constitutional muster.
4. Mining, trade and transport boom:
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said the transport, trade, and mining sectors recorded an increase in the number of new employees hired in the third quarter of 2023.
The third quarter’s employment figures were released on Thursday, showing an overall increase of 31,000 more employees hired between June and September, compared to the second quarter of 2023.
While an increase in employment was good news for South Africa, Stats SA said there was a decline in the number of people hired on a full-term basis, including people hired in community services.
In Gauteng, thousands of people received part-time employment through the province’s Nasi iSpani project and the Gauteng Crime Prevention Wardens.
In November, the unemployment statistics also showed a drop for the same period.
However, sectors like construction and manufacturing hired fewer people when compared to the second quarter.
5. Big turn for load shedding:
Power utility Eskom has managed to keep its breakdowns in check this past week, which has allowed it to suspend load shedding for extended periods of time – but it hasn’t been without help.
While breakdowns have dropped below 12,000MW of capacity in recent days, the latest blackout statistics compiled by independent energy analyst Pieter Jordaan shows that a significant drop in demand has played a big role – as well as the burning of diesel to meet evening peaks.
In fact, Jordaan said, Eskom has turned to its open cycle gas turbines once again after nearly two weeks of keeping the OCGTs at arm’s length.
“Eskom’s production data shows that it needed to open the diesel taps again from Wednesday onwards, er a hiatus of almost a fortnight,” he said.
“The latest data also showed that, on Friday, it drew down its pumped hydro reserves to below 33% and needed to maintain hourly OCGT utilisation above 50% from 16h00 to 23h00. The significant peaking defence was mounted against a mild average evening peak of 25.8 GW, lasting from 19h00 to 20h00.”
Regardless, Eskom managed to keep its breakdowns in check, to the relief of most South Africans.
“A bonus public holiday on Friday contributed to an early drop-off in seasonal demand which helped the power utility to keep the lights on for longer,” Jordaan said.
Eskom announced on Sunday that it would keep load shedding suspended until further notice, with the next big update expected only on Friday again.
The load shedding suspension means that blackout hours are currently moving far below the trend line and the country will likely avoid the projections forecast at the start of the year.
It is currently expected that South Africans will end the year having experienced a cumulative 75.6 days, or 1,814 blackout hours (time in the dark). While this is far higher than any year before, it is below the 80-day mark.
All information sourced from articles posted by: DailyInvestor, Moneyweb, EWN, and BusinessTech.
