On the cusp of a crisis
Mmegi Editor | Tuesday April 28, 2015 14:43
In that year, former Energy Minister, Ponatshego Kedikilwe urged Batswana not to witch-hunt blame for the load-shedding, despite mounting evidence pointing to the myopia of policymakers in years preceding the crisis. Rather, Kedikilwe galvanised Batswana and investors around the promise of a shiny, new 600 MW power station which would not only resolve the country’s immediate power shortages, but guarantee its future as well.
Alas, the hope induced by Kedikilwe’s soothing words, did not spring eternal.
To date, taxpayers have directly or indirectly funded the Morupule B power station to the tune of more than P11 billion and are obligated to loan repayments there from. Billions of Pula more have been lost in the opportunity costs arising from the inability by the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) to deliver the Morupule B power station as promised.
Taxpayers have also paid out billions more in ever increasing subsidies and tariff support for the BPC, which for this year will amount to P1.5 billion.
Indeed, the ticking is getting louder especially when one adds the ongoing shortages of water in Greater Gaborone and other areas around the country when to this incendiary cocktail.
Having begrudgingly become accustomed to sporadic loadshedding, to the point that the term has forced itself into the local lingo, Batswana are now also asked to go without water for days. In some areas where it is available, its quality is dubious, such as in Molepolole where taps produced red water.
The BPC is perennially in the red, surviving solely on taxpayer subsidies, while the Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) has paled into a shadow of its former profitable self, having choked while attempting to swallow the Water Affairs Department.
At the core of the challenges households face today, are historic policy failures, particularly in the area of forecasting. A classic example of this is the fact that the BPC only began studying the expansion of Morupule A in 2003, nine years after its own study had pointed to an urgent need to expand.
In 1994, that idea was rejected on the grounds expansion would increase tariffs needlessly as the customer base was small and required works costly. In addition, the 60MW Selebi Phikwe power station was decommissioned allegedly for a song in 1989, when it could today be relieving the load on the national grid.
The WUC was not better, ignoring the lessons of the 2005/06 drought when Gaborone Dam reached its then record low of 16 percent. Today, the Dam is just above two percent, five months before the start of the rain season and households are running dry daily.
It is an indecent irony that the millions of Pula spent on consultancies for these two utilities and the obvious robust treasury support, have been unable to preserve the third ‘D ‘– dignity – for Batswana.
Batswana are scraping by, humiliated and those in authority should take heed of the desperation in households.
Today’s thought
“It is not fair to ask of others what you
are not willing to do yourself.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt