However hopeful one may try to be, the future is not very bright regarding Botswana’s energy supplies.
It would look like too much hope, energy and resources have been placed and invested on the likelihood of Mmamabula power project coming up.
The reality, however, is that Mmamabula is taking rather too long for anyone outside the negotiations room to be able to say with any level of certainty if things will work out in the end.
With everyone in the dark (literally) on the future of Mmamabula, our best bet is that, as it has so often happened in the past, God will help this country out of the approaching abyss and deliver some form of salvation.
To put it mildly, the odds against Botswana are high and growing.
The situation is likely to get worse before it gets any better.
We may differ on everything else but, as a country, we should be united in the thinking that time is certainly not on our side.
And with international prices for all commodities going up everyday, it is not far fetched to fear that by the time a decision is made to start the project in earnest, it will have become infeasible, thanks not only to stress in the supply chain but high prices as well.
We have always believed that power is a security issue. It was always naïve of us to believe that we could rely on foreign benevolence for such an important commodity.
Now we are in a crisis and to get out of it, we are likely to perform some grossest mistakes we will always live to regret.
While we stand firmly behind government in its endeavour to secure a reliable, affordable, sustainable and long lasting power supply, we also are of the opinion that government should equally be careful of the footloose cowboy investors that are beginning to straddle our country masquerading as our saviours against the power of darkness.
Government should always bear in mind that investors come here not because they have fallen in love with Botswana but simply because they think they can make the most returns.
In this case CIC, which is partner to Botswana government in the development of Mmamabula, is no exception.
Given the corporation’s expertise in negotiating such deals not to mention it being abnormally conscious of Botswana’s desperate plight, CIC naturally has an upper hand at the table.
It is not an exaggeration to say CIC would, as a result of their edge over the Botswana Government, want to push the country to the wall and extract as much concessions as possible for themselves.
That said, as a nation, we should be worried that while our contract with Eskom is slowly winding down to a close, there is a shocking lack of clarity of what alternatives are coming up.
This lack of clarity is, to say the least, disconcerting.
As it were, the power interruptions that the country has had to endure for the last six months have caused irreparable damage and disruption to the flow of business in Botswana.
The effects on the economy will be felt for many years to come.
While the small and medium-sized companies have naturally been the worst affected, we should now be more worried that these effects seem to be slowly penetrating into the mining sector which is by far Botswana’s economic mainstay.
While we appreciate the sensitivity of the negotiations surrounding the development of a huge and ambitious project such as Mmamabula, it is disheartening, to say the least, that there still does not seem to be any progress made on making headway in as far as making a public announcement of where we are headed.
Given the ramblings that Mmamabula may not be able to attract the needed patronage in the form of Eskom, it is important for the Ministry of Energy to come out clearly and state what its Plan B is. Without Plan B, then we are headed for an even deeper crisis.
On the other hand, given the mounting public anxiety on where we are headed, it is very important that the nation is officially briefed on a much more regular basis what progress has been made with regards to the construction of private power stations that the state utility BPC talked about early in the year.
It is also our opinion that the nation deserves a much more regular progress report on what is going on in as far as expanding the existing plant at Morupule.
These are simple things to do that would go a long way in allaying fears on the part of businesses and potential investors.
Government agencies’ practice of keeping all the information to themselves only to confront the nation on the eleventh hour that every other plan that had been tried has failed is, in our opinion, terribly irresponsible and should be discouraged.
To use Vice President Mompati Merafhe’s phrase, it cannot be business as usual.
If there is one area where it cannot be business as usual, it is in the area of energy supply.
In fact, looking at a longer term, it is not an exaggeration to say that energy security so far portends as one area with all the likelihood to become a make or break for this government.
We hope that, as part of their growing populist menu, this government will be generous enough to include the country’s energy supply in their sound-bites.
