By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) says $300 million in concessional loans, each from Germany and France, has already flowed to the country, along with grant funding. But these have not yet been allocated to specific projects – pending the finalisation of an implementation plan for the JET-IP.
The commission’s Rudi Dicks and executive director Crispian Olver briefed the media on the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET_IP) recommendations report submitted to the president on Monday.
Dicks told the media that the country will have to account for every rand spent during the project.
“Some of the policy-based contributions from France and Germany have already flowed $300 million each, some of the grant funding has flowed also the exercise that we are currently doing and its part of a preliminary exercise once we have completed the consultation processes on the investment plans and the finalization on the implementation plan because the partners themselves have made this very clear that we need to have a detailed structure implementation plan on where funding will flow.
“At this point in time, money has not flowed into projects until such time that we have completed and finalized an implementation plan that everybody is happy with including the PCC and the international partners.
The commission’s Olver says engagements are ongoing with stakeholders on the implementation of the transition.
“We have now consulted extensively with stakeholders, there is a clear commitment to stakeholder engagements on behalf of the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan team and we recommend that stakeholder engagements continue even as we move to an inclusive participatory partnership approach around implementation and there’s is enormous goodwill and capacity that exists across the stakeholders for implementation.
“There have been valid criticisms raised by stakeholders, and these must be addressed in the process of implementation (rather than rewriting JET-IP).
“Capacity and implementation issues are inadequately covered. Government should undertake a capacity assessment, align the governance structures and address barriers to implementation.
“Strong accountability, anti-corruption and oversight mechanisms need to be built into the plan.”
Olver also said the Presidential Climate Commission plans to recommend that 50 to 60 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity be included in the country’s energy mix by 2030.
The commission is currently working on recommendations for the Integrated Resources Plan – which outlines how the country’s energy demand – will be met by 2030. Olver said the full set of recommendations would be launched soon.
“… In those recommendations, we are going to argue that we need to get 50GW to 60GW of renewables onto the grid by 2030,” he said. The scale of peaking capacity recommended from gas plants, for example, is significantly lower at 3GW to 5GW.
The Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) has released two reports on South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP) following extensive stakeholder engagements within the first three months of this year with communities, labour, civil society, faith-based groups, business and other groups.
For more information on reports, go to: