Africa-Press – South-Africa. The multi-billion dollar investment into South Africa’s transition to renewable energies is hardly off the ground and already facing criticism from civil society.
A year after its announcement, in late 2022, several developed nations, including Germany, the US, the UK and France, pledged $8.5 billion (R160 billion) for the Just Energy Transition (JET) Partnership.
This funding is aimed to help South Africa boost its energy supply through renewables and decommission its coal-fired power stations.
This has since grown to $11 billion (R207 billion) after Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands provided additional funding during 2023.
South Africa faces tremendous risks from global warming due to the nation’s water scarcity and ecology. However, the economy is still highly dependent on coal and other fossil fuels, making the transition to renewables costly.
Since its announcement, very little information has been publicly shared, particularly how the funding would be structured and deployed.
The government has since uploaded a “JET Implementation Plan (IP) Grant Mapping Register”, which shows that billions of funds have already been spent, allocated or pledged, with many of it released before the publishing of an investment plan.
R10 billion has already been allocated to 145 projects, which Just Share’s Executive Director Tracey Davies says shows that “we were all dopes from the start.”
When the project was announced in November 2022, 80 of the 145 projects worth over R5.3 billion had already started. The end dates for 26 of these projects were before the cabinet formally approved the JET IP in November 2023.
“A lack of transparency around the JETP threatens to quickly erode public trust in the entire project,” Davies said.
“While there may indeed be worthy recipients of the funding allocated so far, the register raises two crucial initial questions. First, how are the recipients selected? Second, what criteria are used to assess whether a project will contribute to the JET?”
Firstly, the JET Project Management Unit within the presidency does not have a website, and there is no understanding of who works there, Davies said.
“There is also no public application process for JETP funding and no public information about how recipients are chosen.”
Although the JET IP states that a matchmaking mechanism between funds and beneficiaries will be created, hundreds of millions have already been disbursed to an array of “implementing entities”, including universities, consultants and more.
“(Secondly), while the JET IP identifies key focus areas for the use of grant funding, it is hard to understand, without transparency around selection, how and when this myriad of diverse, disconnected projects will converge in achieving accelerated decarbonisation and justice for affected communities,” she said.
“This is particularly concerning when looking at funds deployed to recipients in the private sector, such as an American event management firm, which received R16.6 million to organise green hydrogen industry workshops or the R626 million for green fuel projects where Sasol is a joint implementing partner.”
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