State of the Nation – Karoo Fracking – Eskom Power Failures

One of the comments made by President Jacob Zuma during his 2015 State of the Nation Address related to a plan to use natural gas to drive the stand-by generators, rather than diesel fuel.  A little later in the address, the President commented that there is an abundance of natural gas in the Karoo, the exploitation of which on a test basis has been approved by the Minister of Energy, without the full consultative process having been completed.

The cynics amongst the audience immediately put 2+2 together, to come up with 20%.  It is noteworthy that the controversial project to exploit the Karoo shale is to be undertaken by Shell SA, in which the ANC has acquired a 20% stake during January 2015, and that the gas emanating from that project is the subject of an instruction by the Government to Eskom to become the fuel of choice.  One might be forgiven for wondering whether the recent power shortages suffered by the public at the hands of Eskom might have been engineered in order to ensure that the Karoo shale project proceeds, thereby paying handsome dividends to the ANC.  If this were not the case, one might wonder why the ANC and Shell SA have got into bed together at this stage.

Of course, in normal circumstances, no reasonable citizen would ask whether a governing Party would put its electorate to the extreme distress that the South African public and the South African economy are suffering merely to profit from such an underhanded deal.  In the case of the ANC, however, such a question might be pardoned, given the long history of such dealings in South Africa.

Of course, this is a rumour, and not yet proven fact.  It is the course of conduct one might expect from a Party that does not believe that it will be re-elected, and, of course, one could not apply that sort of thinking to the ANC.  Or could one?

Whatever the answer, the question is one that several people are already asking, and the Government, or, perhaps, the Public Protector, would be well-advised to investigate, in order to put to rest the suspicions raised against the most strongly-distrusted President in the history of the country.

No allegations are made or implied in this blog.  Just asking.