Construction World January 2015

COMMENT

At the time of writing this (December 2014), South Africa is firmly in the grip of load shedding, the likes of which the country experienced in 2008 – when it was classified as a major crisis. To make matters worse, Eskom is subjecting the public and industry to a ‘will- they-or-will-they-not’ type of schedule: completely unpredictable outages which in the long run will make it difficult to build a country.

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EDITOR Wilhelm du Plessis constr@crown.co.za ADVERTISING MANAGER Erna Oosthuisen ernao@crown.co.za LAYOUT & DESIGN Lesley Testa CIRCULATION Karen Smith This is what the current status quo is achieving: the frequent energy supply shortages and supply security uncertainty are damaging South Africa’s international reputation as an investment destination. The power outages causes further harm to the country’s already To add insult to injury, the powers-that-be within Eskom have refused to admit that this is an energy crisis. Yet, in the same breath, they maintain that regular outages will be a part of the South African reality for at least the next two years. Whether they want to admit it or not, the country is in an energy crisis. Reports of massive losses abound. Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) has urged government and Eskom to bring an end to the current bout of load shedding, which, in the first three weeks, has cost the metals and engi- neering sector an estimated R6-billion in lost revenue. The reality

ailing economy. It will render South Africa globally uncompetitive. Light and the end of a long tunnel Despite the doom and gloom (literally), PwC recently announced that infrastructure spend in sub-Saharan Africa will grow from USD70-billion in 2013 to USD180-billion by 2025. This is according to the PwC’s report on capital projects and infrastructure for East, Southern and West Africa. This figure is double the USD93-billion a year the World Bank says Africa currently needs for infrastructure build. South Africa and Nigeria spent 68% of all infrastructure spend last year – followed by Kenya (10%), Ghana (8%), Ethiopia (6%), Tanzania (5%) and Mozambique (3%). An interesting aspect of the report, relevant in the current energy situation, is that 48 countries in the region produce 84 GW of power (which is about the same Spain produces) while only 10% of the sub-

Saharan region’s hydropower is being realised. The report found that there is a growing sense of longer term planning in the sub-Sa- haran countries (something that was sorely lacking in South Africa): some 75% of respon- dents to the report (95) indicated that the capital projects that were surveyed, formed part of an overall infrastructure master plan for specific countries. This notwithstanding: the South African energy crisis is real though – the Kusile and Medupi power stations will only bring relief in years to come. All South Africans can do is hope that the effects of load shedding only have minor impact.

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Wilhelm du Plessis Twitter: @ConstWorldSA

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CONSTRUCTION WORLD JANUARY 2015