We knew about shortage - Magang

STRYKER MOTLALOSO
Staff Writer | Friday February 8, 2008 00:00

 

Former energy minister in the 1990s, David Magang, says the power cuts gripping Botswana and some parts of southern Africa were long anticipated but somebody slept on the job in the case of Botswana, failing to respond timeously to the impending disaster.

' We have always known about that, but the timing is critical. There has been lack of leadership,' said Magang in an interview yesterday.

His analysis is that 'as a country, we were short-sighted though we knew in the 1990s that we would experience power shortages'. 'Given the situation, Morupule should have started five years ago and by now the country would have been about to be self-sufficient,' says Magang.

He is further outraged that Botswana imports about 70 percent of its power from neighbouring South Africa when the country is sitting on enough coal that could sustain it for over a hundred years.

However, unlike in Botswana, the cause of the power crisis is partly explicable in that in South Africa, power is in the hands of the private sector that prefers to sell to countries such as India and China that offer good prices unlike the government owned Eskom, expounds Magang.

In his illustration of how the power problem was long known ten years ago, Magang alludes to the establishment of the Southern Africa Power Pool which shows that the southern Africans were aware that there would be a power shortage.

'It was known that some countries would have more than enough power. They would connect to the rest so that there would be a surplus to help those that did not have enough,' said Magang.

In line with that, power was bought from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia which countries had surpluses enough to help the others.

Then South Africa had surplus power because Africans did not use it. This is what gave currency to the thinking that Botswana could, for the time being, buy power from South Africa and that there would be no need to expand Morupule.

'If there was a surplus, to whom would the country sell it?' the rhetorical question arose. But even then it was known that power from South Africa would run short and Botswana could expand Morupule.

And that reality came, but in 1994 there was a dispensation that came with the new government resulting in Africans using electricity, said Magang.

' But after I left, the ministry slept on Morupule expansion because we knew BPC started having problems with staff, the chief executive, deputy chief executive even now the BPC does not have a substantive leader,' posits Magang.

He puts the blame for the power crisis on the government. In 2005 when we connected electricity to Botswana and Namibia, it was announced that that there would be shortage of power in 2008.

'Coupled with that, we also knew that there would be water shortage in 2010-1 hence the Dikgathong project that will cater for Serowe, Shoshong, Molepolole and Kanye. So we have always known,' admitted Magang.

Magang also alludes to the running battles he had with the government and the Botswana Power Corporation about the expansion of the Phakalane Golf Club in 2002 saying he quarrelled with the power utility then.

'We exchanged letters with Boomtswe Mokgothu, the former Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources. I am not surprised about the situation,' he said.