Ladies and gentlemen,
Please accept on behalf of the Government of the Republic of South Africa our sincerest condolences at the tragic passing of your family members and colleagues whilst on duty performing the important task of the construction of this flagship programme, the Ingula Pumped Storage, which will play such an important role in guaranteeing the security of electricity supply for our country.
As well as supplying much-needed electricity to the nation, this project was intended to showcase the dexterity of South African engineering and catapult our energy generation to the next level.
It is accordingly with deep sadness that we have assembled here to pay tribute to some of our colleagues that have suddenly, and without a warning, departed our midst. We have come to this hallowed earth to remind ourselves of the sanctity of life and the critically important need for us to ensure that through all our actions, and employing all our power, we protect life and assert the worth of humankind.
We have gathered on this grieving piece of earth because fate has intervened, brutally, to determine that some among those who were our beloved and colleagues should take leave of us permanently, without a warning but bravely.
We are here today because we have to take a pause at this moment, not only to honour fellow brethren who courageously perished on duty, with their boots on, at the service of our nation, but to reflect on what might we have done differently to prevent such tragedy from happening.
The national outpouring of grief that followed the tragic accident of last week Thursday reflected both the high-esteem in which the workers of this important Site were held by South Africans, but also another fact that since its advent, the new democratic dispensation has, contrary to its predecessor racial minority regimes, emphatically placed human beings at the centre of our national endeavour.
We are saddened by this loss not only because human lives have been lost so tragically, but because this accident has underscored the fatal danger to which the workers continue to be exposed on a daily basis as they execute their important responsibilities on behalf of our nation as well as their families.
From the outset, I must make the point very clearly that I fully support the announcements last week by both Government and Eskom that they will leave no stone unturned to investigate the causes of the incident and to take all measures as are necessary to ensure that we improve our safety standards during the infrastructure implementation and prevent any future recurrence of similar incidents.
Over the last few years, Eskom’s safety standards have drastically improved, but clearly more must be done to ensure that we can almost totally guarantee the safety of the workers during work, particularly the construction of complex projects.
Ladies and gentlemen,
As a response to our country’s economic challenges, Government has identified social and economic infrastructure as vitally important to facilitate economic development – to create jobs, develop skills, industrialise our economy.
This should in the near future and for all time to come make it easy to do business in South Africa and thus make our economy both competitive and attractive both to foreign and domestic investors.
In this regard, the investment programmes of the State-Owned Companies will play a critical role in encouraging demand to stimulate economic activity and investment and in driving programmes that will put in place the infrastructure, skills, industrial and technological capacity to drive our future economy.
To ensure that this infrastructure roll-out programme does more than leave behind only the infrastructure, government has adopted various policy instruments to support this programme and ensure that through it, we localise production and components, create jobs, develop and localise skills and industrialise our economy.
The provision of adequate electricity supply will be pivotal in supporting economic growth. Accordingly, as our economy continues to grow, we will need to ensure adequate availability of reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable electricity which is undoubtedly essential to realising the Government’s goals of job creation, skills development, economic growth and transformation.
Historically, Eskom has had generating capacity in excess of demand because the majority of the citizens had no access to electricity. This both created a false sense of security of electricity supply and, at the same time, constrained growth resulted in the poor projection of economic growth and development.
Consequently, when from 2000 to 2007, the South African economy experienced significant growth and demand for electricity grew far ahead of the capacity to supply the power, as a result of the real constraints that existed at the time, the economy was severely affected and in 2008 the country experienced load-shedding.
At that moment, the Government decided to beef up our electricity capacity so as to come on stream from 2013 onwards to address the urgent needs of our economy which, by 2008, until the global economic crisis intervened, had been growing sustainably for more than a decade.
As a result of these demands, Eskom commissioned a few initiatives, which included:
- the construction of liquid fuel Open-Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGT) stations,
- initiatives to return to service of three coal-fired power stations in Camden, Grootvlei, and Komati which had been decommissioned in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to perceived excess capacity
- most crucially, the construction of two new coal-fired power stations at Medupi and Kusile, as well as a new pumped storage scheme at Ingula.
Overall, the committed capital expansion programme is planned to achieve additional capacity of approximately 17,000 MW by 2018 and is expected to require a total investment of approximately R340 billion.
We have made these points because we want to underscore the significant point that even as we might be experiencing and operating a very tight electricity system at the present moment, we have been able to keep the lights on and there are, most importantly, significant capital investments which are not only creating jobs and stimulating the economy and the demand for capital goods, but shall add significant volumes of electricity capacity onto the national grid.
This shall ensure that in future we have adequate supply to meet our vastly increasing demand and power the South African economy to dizzy heights. This should give assurance both to industry and fellow South Africans that sufficient provisioning and investment, when the Independent Power Producers (IPPS) are also considered, is being made for the future and the constraints we are currently experiencing will soon be the things of the past.
Independent Power Producers will add on our electricity capacity and introduce energy mix and thus diversify our generation. It is the first time in the South African energy history that private sector participation is given a market share in the energy sector.
Investors need this long-term vision and planning in order to decide to invest their money into the economy and job-creating ventures.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Evidently, the investment programmes of our SOC have to date dramatically transformed the South African economic landscape and the economic recovery programme has been driven largely by the bold investment plans of the SOC.
The current infrastructure programme – the largest and most ambitious infrastructure roll-out programme that has ever been implemented in the history of South Africa – is intended to have a positive impact on our country, people and economy. Opportunities abound in our country for business people to invest in new ventures and help grow our economy and create jobs.
On this sad occasion as this one, it is important to make the emphatic statements:
- That South Africa is today a much better country than it was in 1994 at the advent of our democracy, following the runs left by apartheid which have systematically and with renewed urgency disentangled and turned on its head, although not sufficiently;
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That because of both what we have achieved in the first nineteen of our democracy and
the infrastructure programme we have pursued so steadfastly, particularly in the last five years of this administration, in the process spending a whopping R1 trillion on infrastructure investments, our people have valid reason to have hope and confidence in the future the ANC-led government is building - That, therefore, this ANC-led Government is handling our people’s future very well; the National Development Plan is our pathway into the future of which we can be confident.
Ladies and gentlemen,
This sad occasion presents us with the opportunity to pay tribute to these men, from home and abroad, who were to us our pillars and anchors; indeed, the architects of our better tomorrow. Because of their efforts, they were involved with all of us in changing our current realities and the fortunes of our nation.
Soon, and of this we are resolutely confident, the nightmares of unemployment, poverty and inequality shall pass and a brighter future of social inclusion shall emerge. Future generations and engineering students will, for all time to come, marvel at these monuments of human creation and appreciate such engineering marvels as this pumped-storage scheme is and will be when completed.
When in future we shall talk of how a quiet and lush, but wild, mountain was cornered and carefully but resolutely bent to not just an engineering marvel, but a source of power for the nation and her economy, future generations will hear of the gallantry of the workers that tamed this mountain as well as the men and women who, in the process, gave their lives to this project as if to cement it with their own blood.
In the course of implementing this project, many foreign workers joined us to share with our people their skills, experience and wherewithal. By so doing, they have given to South Africa an invaluable part of themselves and cemented the bonds of friendship and solidarity between South Africa and their respective countries and sister peoples of Lesotho and Chile and from elsewhere in the world.
Whilst it is extremely important to develop our own skills to support and infrastructure roll-out, we are eternally grateful to all the foreign workers who are helping us out in the infrastructure programme and, in the process, are transferring their invaluable skills to our people, especially the youth, and thus helping to empower South Africans.
This will, in future, help us turn the effects of the apartheid system on its head and hoist it at its own petard. We take this opportunity to thank these honoured and valiant men, today silent and eternally departed from our midst to the world beyond the comprehension of the living, for their contribution to our people and society.
To us, to future generations and for all time, they will be remembered as front-line builders of a better tomorrow for all South Africans who died fighting for the dignity of all our people.
We thank their families that allowed them – their beloved – to travel so far to our shores where their contribution to our nation shall forever be eternalised in this scheme at the shores of which we are assembled here.
We must take the opportunity of their demise to make the steadfast promise in their name relentlessly to continue, while we live, to finish this Ingula Scheme and all other infrastructure projects that shall change the fortunes of our people in South Africa and throughout the African continent and create a better life for all.
As a result of the callous hand of fate, they will no longer be there when this project is completed, to enjoy the beauty and marvel of their creation and celebrate with the rest of our people at its inauguration.
But their children will know this that their fathers were among the forward-rank architects for this project and the better life it shall usher in for all our people. It is for this reason that we are today paying tribute to the builders of our nation and her future that we should also use this occasion to urge all South Africans, in honour to these brave hearts to come out in overwhelming numbers on Saturday and Sunday, 9 - 10 November, to register to vote in the 2014 general elections.
This we must do knowing that their vote in these elections would be best way to celebrate the victories and achievements of the past 19 years, but most importantly, to take these victories forward on this never-ending journey to create the South Africa of our dreams – a non-racial, non-sexist, united, democratic, prosperous and socially-inclusive society.
More than anyone else, this future belongs to our youth who must, at this stage, carry forward the cudgels of our long, and never-ending relay of struggle towards a better life for all. They must confound the critics and the sceptics and come out in large numbers to defend our past, consolidate our present and advance the future!
Ladies and gentlemen,
We take this opportunity to dip our fraternal banners as a nation to these workers and their families and to wish them an eternal rest. We thank the Governments of the Kingdom of Lesotho and the Philippines for sending their representatives to join us, and for having allowed their nationals to support this important work of implementing infrastructure development in South Africa.
We will forever remember this act of patriotism and solidarity on their part and our people will never forget both this act and the international solidarity of these men who lie silent before us.
Because of their contribution, we are today a better people and more confident of our future. May God grant them eternal peace, and their families, comfort and his eternal love.
I thank you!
