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Terence Creamer

Terence Creamer is the Editor of Engineering News and a Deputy Editor for Mining Weekly. He also has editorial responsibility for Polity.org.za and Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa.

Editorial Insight

Out of step

By: Terence Creamer 21st February 2020 There were indications already at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that South Africa was out of step with the main themes occupying the minds of most global government and business leaders. The overwhelming thrust of the 2020 gathering was about dealing with the existential threat... →

Walter Mitty Syndrome

By: Terence Creamer 14th February 2020 The South African government would not be able to build an emergency hospital in ten days, let alone an emergency power station. For evidence, look no further than the horribly overpriced and disastrously delayed Medupi and Kusile coal projects. Even in the face of an obvious emergency, which the... →

In need of a quick win

By: Terence Creamer 7th February 2020 Any rational observer of the South African condition, will probably have grudgingly come to accept that it’s going to take a significant amount of time to turn around the performance not only of the economy, but also those public entities that still play an over-sized role in shaping the... →

The stuff of nightmares

By: Terence Creamer 31st January 2020 For those who have resolved to make 2020 the year they start prioritising a good night’s sleep, it would not be advisable to make bedtime reading of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR’s) new report on South Africa’s electricity crisis. Released as a 63-page slide deck, the... →

End of the beginning

By: Terence Creamer 24th January 2020 South Africans may be divided on many issues, but on the fact that inadequate electricity supply represents the main risk to the country’s economy, there is undeniable unity. Ongoing disagreement remains, however, on the solution. This in itself is flabbergasting for two reasons. Firstly, because... →

Time to act

By: Terence Creamer 17th January 2020 The return of load-shedding, together with what is a truly dire prognosis for system stability, should surely have been the wake-up call government required to finally begin implementing its very own Integrated Resource Plan 2019 (IRP 2019). Instead, the only indication that the Department of... →

Road trip to the ʼ20s

By: Terence Creamer 13th December 2019 As we approach the onramp to the 2020’s, the car-wreck of South Africa’s ‘lost decade’ looms large in the rear-view mirror. The confidence boost provided by the successful hosting of the FIFA World Cup in 2010 is a faded road sign thousands of kilometres in the distant past. Even though the... →

Huge risk, no urgency

By: Terence Creamer 6th December 2019 The risk posed by Eskom to the fiscus is surpassed only by the risk posed by ongoing electricity shortages to the economy and South Africa’s growth prospects. The South African Reserve Bank has already downgraded the country’s growth potential to a miserable 1% – a rate wholly insufficient to... →

Time to get real about Eskom coal fleet

By: Terence Creamer 29th November 2019 Opinion may be divided on the appointment of Andre de Ruyter as Eskom’s new CEO, but on one point it’s overwhelmingly united: there will be no honeymoon period. The attitude of citizens towards State-owned companies generally and Eskom in particular has hardened. Nobody wants to hear any more... →

Mobilise private finance

By: Terence Creamer 22nd November 2019 One of the key messages in the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) Africa Energy Outlook 2019 report is that neither State budgets nor development finance will be sufficient to fund the investments required to meet Africa’s growing power demands to 2040. The report states that cumulative... →

Crunch time

By: Terence Creamer 15th November 2019 South Africans are painfully aware of the negative consequences of power shortages. The menace of load-shedding has hung over the country’s economy like a pall for more than ten years. Notwithstanding flat demand, an expensive Eskom build programme and the introduction of some private generation,... →

Backsliding

By: Terence Creamer 8th November 2019 The problems with the way the World Bank’s yearly ‘Ease of Doing Business Ranking’ is compiled are well documented. Nevertheless, the ranking has become something of a touchstone for those seeking to make a quick assessment of a country’s business environment. In recognition of this, President... →

Urgent Concurrence

By: Terence Creamer 1st November 2019 The very last column in the Integrated Resource Plan 2019 (IRP 2019) table is certain to attract much attention, for the immediate future anyway. The column bears the unglamorous heading of ‘Other’, followed by the words ‘Distributed Generation, CoGen, Biomass, Landfill’ in brackets. Under the... →

Power struggle

By: Terence Creamer 25th October 2019 State-owned electricity utility Eskom confirmed earlier this month that it would be taking the Energy Regulator’s most recent tariff determination on legal review and would also be applying for urgent interim relief to “avoid financial disaster”. The action was not unexpected. The utility had... →

Necessary, but insufficient

By: Terence Creamer 22nd October 2019 “The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) will be a game-changer, both for South Africa and the rest of the continent,” President Cyril Ramaphosa wrote in his October 7 letter to the nation. African integration, he added, is “overwhelmingly and undeniably in our national interest”,... →

Necessary, but insufficient

By: Terence Creamer 18th October 2019 “The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) will be a game-changer, both for South Africa and the rest of the continent,” President Cyril Ramaphosa wrote in his October 7 letter to the nation. African integration, he added, is “overwhelmingly and undeniably in our national interest”,... →

Best of bad choices

By: Terence Creamer 11th October 2019 When asked by CNN host Fareed Zakaria about America’s decision to abandon the Iran nuclear deal, former British Prime Minister David Cameron replied: “It’s certainly right to say that the deal had its imperfections, but all deals have their imperfections . . . often in politics and international... →

Tail wagging dog

By: Terence Creamer 4th October 2019 During a recent energy event, Andy Calitz, who has bravely put up his hand for the vacant post of Eskom CEO, indicated that one of his major impressions since returning to South Africa, following an absence of over two decades, is that domestic executives and policymakers have not yet fully... →

Saved by democracy?

By: Terence Creamer 27th September 2019 The reactions of Julius Malema and Gwede Mantashe respectively to recent negative media reports show up stark differences in both style and substance. True, the allegations published about Malema’s illicit windfall following the unconscionable plunder of VBS Mutual Bank are vastly more serious... →

Growth engine

By: Terence Creamer 20th September 2019 For those still in search of evidence of just how beneficial a relationship South Africa enjoys with the rest of the continent – and Southern Africa in particular – a visit to any regional border post would immediately dispel any doubts. Even more than a thousand kilometres north of Johannesburg,... →

Food for thought

By: Terence Creamer 13th September 2019 Next week is the deadline for the submission of comments on the economic policy paper released by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni in late August. The paper’s distribution came as something of a surprise – possibly as surprising as the Minister’s penchant for cooking with Lucky Star pilchards.... →

VAR and the IRP

By: Terence Creamer 6th September 2019 If you watch international football, you will be acutely aware that one of the hottest topics of conversations these days is ‘VAR’ or the video assistant referee. Never does a weekend go by without enough cyber and real ink being spilled over VAR-related decision to fill a pint-sized glass to... →

Political gamesmanship?

By: Terence Creamer 30th August 2019 Mineral Resources and Energy minister Gwede Mantashe left many scratching their heads again last week after a briefing of mostly foreign correspondents in Johannesburg. It came as little surprise when the Minister reiterated government’s hackneyed argument that South Africa would be remiss if it... →

What not to do

By: Terence Creamer 23rd August 2019 Given South Africa’s current economic predicament, it is not only natural but also important for government, along with its business and labour partners, to begin looking outside of the country’s prevailing frameworks for solutions. There are already some promising signs of this happening, with... →

All hands to the pump

By: Terence Creamer 16th August 2019 There is a growing tendency among hitherto committed and well-intentioned South Africans to simply throw up their hands in despair when considering the state of the economy and the slow pace of reforms needed to liberate it from its current low-growth trap. There is also a rising emotional... →

Grasping the nettle

By: Terence Creamer 9th August 2019 South Africans are most certainly weary of commissions of inquiry and it’s, thus, entirely inopportune to be talking about the possibility of convening yet another one. It’s far from clear, however, whether the usual channels can be relied upon to deliver a sustainable solution to South Africa’s... →

People matter

By: Terence Creamer 2nd August 2019 A key take away from the dreadful ‘State capture era’ it is that institutions matter and so do the people that lead them. If it had not been for the resilience of key individuals in the judiciary, the National Treasury and the Office of the Public Protector during the ‘peak capture years’, it is... →

Stale and uninspiring

By: Terence Creamer 26th July 2019 There was little sign of the promised ‘reform agenda’ in the recent Budget Vote speeches delivered by South Africa’s newly appointed Cabinet Ministers. In far too many instances, the speeches showed little or no evidence of deviation from past stale scripts. In the worst cases, there was even... →

Missed opportunity

By: Terence Creamer 19th July 2019 In light of the intensifying global efforts to tackle climate change, as well as South Africa’s ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement, it would be irresponsible for government to do nothing to address domestic greenhouse-gas emissions. A failure to act would result in the costs being both... →

High impact

By: Terence Creamer 12th July 2019 Britain’s got Brexit, America has Trump and South Africa’s got corruption. When such powerful single-issue themes permeate just about every political and economic development, a country can easily be distracted from giving attention to some even more pressing problems. In the case of South... →

Can we dream big again?

By: Terence Creamer 5th July 2019 President Cyril Ramaphosa was heavily criticised for using the closing section of his June 20 State of the Nation Address (SoNA) to outline an aspirational vision for South Africa. As part of his ‘dream’, the President envisioned a new smart city “with skyscrapers, schools, universities,... →

Future certain

By: Terence Creamer 28th June 2019 Four important energy-related reports were released during the course of June, all of which contain important messages and signals for South Africa and its future energy, industrial and environmental policy choices. The sixty-eighth edition of the ‘BP Statistical Review of World Energy’ points to... →

Ramaphoria 2.0?

By: Terence Creamer 21st June 2019 June started disastrously and only got worse as the days passed. The month began with some unbearable passing of the political buck over who was to blame for the inhumane demolition of some 80 homes in Alexandra, north of Johannesburg. This dreadful, yet far from isolated, incident again... →

Seize the opportunity

By: Terence Creamer 14th June 2019 In early May, South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi surprised many when he described the transition from coal to renewable energy was “inevitable”. Now, Vavi would argue that his statement should astonish nobody, given that Saftu’s official stance had... →

What now?

By: Terence Creamer 7th June 2019 Then there were ten! In reality, far more than ten individuals have occupied the top job at State-owned electricity utility Eskom over its 96-year history. However, following Thulani Gcabashe’s seven-year tenure, which ended in 2007, the door to the CEO’s office on the third floor at Megawatt... →

SA’s mega mission

By: Terence Creamer 31st May 2019 The ‘13 Minutes to the Moon’ podcast series being broadcast by the BBC World Service to mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing holds several inspiration lessons for South Africa as the country seeks to recover from the devastating effects of the State-capture era. The first... →

Out of step

By: Terence Creamer 24th May 2019 A new report on global energy investment in 2018 points to an ongoing misalignment between approved expenditure on new fuel and power projects and meeting the twin goals security of supply and decarbonisation. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) ‘World Energy Investment 2019’ report,... →

Time to engage

By: Terence Creamer 17th May 2019 The mood at the media conference hosted in February at the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) 7 Rissik Street head office in downtown Johannesburg was beyond angry. President Joseph Montisetse reported that the union was “bitterly dismayed” at the decision of its former general-secretary,... →

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