The Civil Engineering Contractor July 2018 | Page 6

ON POLICYMAKERS’ DESKS
Clarity of renewables policy welcomed
New wind projects are being approved.
The signing of 27 contracts with independent power producers
(IPPs) marks the resumption of what up until two years ago
had been hailed as the most successful renewable energy
policy in the world, before it ground to a halt due to Eskom
intransience.
South Africa’s IPP programme got a confident boost in
early April after a last-minute court bid failed to stop newly
appointed energy minister Jeff Radebe from signing 27
contracts with various IPP producers.
The court bid by trade union Numsa had been prompted
by concerns that the renewable energy projects would lead
to job losses in the coal industry, but ignored the IPPs’
expected benefits. The deals are expected to unlock about
R56-billion of investment and to create 61 600 full-time jobs
over the next two to three years, 95% of which would go to
South Africans, including a high proportion in rural areas,
according to a media announcement on 8 March quoting
Radebe. The Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer
Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) supports an increase in
black participation in the industry and the creation of black
industrialists.
With an amended programme design, REIPP requires a
mandatory 40% South African entity participation and black
enterprise, including broad-based black participation in the
form of ownership, economic and socio-economic benefits.
“With these latest projects, black shareholding of 64.2%
of local ownership has been achieved, and shareholding by
black South Africans has also been secured across the value
chain. Black ownership and participation in engineering,
procurement and construction projects, as well as operating
and maintenance projects, has improved under this new