The electricity minister suggested he had cast a wide net to find partners for the country’s fight for reliable electricity
Ramokgopa, who was appointed earlier this year to help bring South Africa’s 15-year energy crisis to an end, was speaking after the signing of a joint memorandum of cooperation with five Chinese entities, including the superpower’s state utility. summit, which is happening in Sandton, Johannesburg.
“We have engaged many countries that have a diplomatic presence here, not just looking at the Brics countries,” Ramokgopa said, adding that his ministry had also approached ambassadors from the major Western powers. In his opening address on Wednesday, Ramokgopa said China has the largest coal-generation capacity in the world. The economic superpower also has the most installed renewable capacity — the amount of power it can generate from renewables — in the world. “The amount of renewables they have is 12 times the size of Eskom,” Ramokgopa said.
Earlier on Wednesday, as part of the signing ceremony Song Lei, the chairperson of the China Africa Development Fund, advised South Africa to relax the black economic empowerment rules to attract more Chinese investment in transmission and distribution.
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