Construction World January 2015

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CONSTRUCTION WORLD JANUARY 2015
>
COMMENT
EDITOR
Wilhelm du Plessis
ADVERTISING MANAGER
Erna Oosthuisen
LAYOUT & DESIGN
Lesley Testa
CIRCULATION
Karen Smith TOTAL CIRCULATION:
(Third Quarter ’14)
4 712
PUBLISHER
Karen Grant
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY
Crown Publications cc
P O Box 140
BEDFORDVIEW, 2008
Tel: 27 11-622-4770 • Fax: 27 11-615-6108
The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher.
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Tandym Cape
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
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
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.
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.
Wilhelm du Plessis
Twitter: @ConstWorldSA