Cancel Eskom’s odious debt to the World Bank

Despite significant and wide-ranging concern about the fate of Eskom, the World Bank has recently expressed its full confidence in the state-owned power utility’s ability to complete Medupi power station and ensure national electricity provision.

This power station, if completed, will be the largest coal-fired power plant on Earth, emitting more carbon dioxide than the 143 least-emitting countries. Just $260-million was dedicated to building the Sere Wind Farm and the Upington Concentrated-Solar Project. A further $450-million that was meant for “low carbon efficiency components,” was mainly used for building a railway that transports coal.

The World Bank repeatedly claimed that the 2010 loan was meant to increase South Africa’s electricity generation capacity through a progressive “energy mix”. To this end, the bank promoted Medupi as a power station that would employ efficient, ultra-supercritical “clean coal” technology. Clean coal has largely been shown to be a myth. Medupi may be one of the most efficient coal power plants ever built, but it still emits more carbon dioxide than most countries.

The rise in atmospheric temperatures will not be experienced evenly across the globe: sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to suffer from twice the global average warming. The incidence rate of disasters such as droughts, famines and cyclones is expected to increase dramatically. The high death toll and damage caused by Cyclone Idai to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Madagascar in March is exemplary of what is to come if radical action is not taken to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis.

Hitachi Power Africa was formed at the end of 2005, with Chancellor House Holdings as a stakeholder. In 2007 Hitachi won R38.5-billion in contracts to build boilers for Eskom, including Medupi’s boilers.

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