The African Transformation Movement (ATM) has written to Speaker of the National Assembly, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, requesting a special sitting for President Cyril Ramaphosa to address Parliament on the spate of international loans the country has been receiving lately.
In the letter dated 17 November 2022, the ATM says it is very concerned about the various loan announcements that government has been periodically making.
Ramaphosa’s administration has mapped out a R1.5 trillion investment plan for the next five years to move the country towards what it calls a “just transition to a greener economy.”
Last year, the founding partners of the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) pledged to mobilize an initial amount of $8.5 billion over the next three to five years to advance the project. This partnership is between South Africa, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.
An additional R10.7-billion (R151.2-billion) loan came after Ramaphosa told the Presidential Climate Commission on the Just Energy Investment Transition Plan that the $8.5-billion pledged by the JETP partners was not enough, because South Africa needs $1.5-trillion to shift to cleaner energy.
The ATM is demanding answers to what exactly were the conditions under which these loans were given.
“Although there’s a lot of public relations exercise about the concessional nature of these giant loans, the fact of the matter is that only 2.7% is grant funding. Put differently, South Africa has been dug into a deep hole,” the Party wrote in the letter.
South Africa continues to be dependent on coal to produce most of its electricity and the coal sector remains significant to the country’s national economy and the livelihood of many communities.
