{"id":795324,"date":"2024-10-14T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=795324"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:25:23","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T11:25:23","slug":"the-man-who-cut-load-shedding-by-6-stages-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/795324\/the-man-who-cut-load-shedding-by-6-stages-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The man who cut load shedding by 6 stages in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Tito Mboweni has been an influential figure in the public and private sphere, and without him, load shedding would have been much worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mboweni passed away on 12 October 2024 at the age of 65 following a short illness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His death led to a flurry of tributes from political and private leaders, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, Discovery CEO Adrian Gore, and even political foes, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mboweni was the first Labour Minister in democratic South Africa and pushed through several pieces of legislation, including the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the Labour Relations Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1999, he was appointed the Eighth Governor of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), and under his leadership, inflation-targeting measures were introduced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of Mboweni\u2019s most significant achievements at the SARB was building up the nation\u2019s foreign exchange reserves to almost $40 billion from less than $10 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Qdx7bs5EJn\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/795042\/reserve-banks-new-target-on-the-table-for-south-africa\/\">Reserve Bank&#8217;s new target on the table for South Africa<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Reserve Bank&#8217;s new target on the table for South Africa&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/795042\/reserve-banks-new-target-on-the-table-for-south-africa\/embed\/#?secret=X8DJBNqBL4#?secret=Qdx7bs5EJn\" data-secret=\"Qdx7bs5EJn\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Following a stint in the private sector, Mboweni was appointed as Minister of Finance by President Cyril Ramaphosa in October 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Bureau for Economic Research (BER) said that Mboweni made three massive decisions in South Africa&#8217;s economic policy trajectory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite being hailed as a champion of labour, his first significant decision was to freeze the government wages in 2019, which occurred in 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He was alarmed by the rapid and unsustainable increase in government wages,&#8221; said the BER.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Together with slowing economic growth, this led to a fiscal position that was deteriorating alarmingly. The wage freeze ultimately started the slow return to fiscal rectitude that had been the hallmark of the pre-Zuma era.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second was the publication of a paper on economic growth in 2019, known as the &#8220;Tito Paper.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This included much-needed economic reforms, such as steps to lift the restrictions on private power generation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;In the six years since the publication of the policy paper (and the subsequent reforms), a total of <strong>6GW of non-Eskom electricity<\/strong> has been added to the grid, <strong>saving South Africa six stages of load shedding<\/strong>,&#8221; said the BER. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The National Transmission Company of South Africa was also officially launched last week. If allowed to function independently, it should lead to further private power generation in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa has seen over 200 days of no load shedding, which seemed almost impossible given the regular sightings of stage 5 and 6 load shedding in 2022 and 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"ESgVippUy3\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/795019\/alarm-bells-for-eskoms-new-company\/\">Alarm bells for Eskom&#8217;s new company<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Alarm bells for Eskom&#8217;s new company&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/795019\/alarm-bells-for-eskoms-new-company\/embed\/#?secret=JcgYYokE2h#?secret=ESgVippUy3\" data-secret=\"ESgVippUy3\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Other recommendations of the Tito paper focused on the nation&#8217;s telecommunications and logistics sectors, with a significant focus on rails and ports for the latter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mboweni&#8217;s third major decision as Finance Minister was responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This included a massive expansion of the grants system, with the Social Relief of Distress<br>grant giving R350 per qualifying person per month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although South Africa&#8217;s ability to fund the grant continues to be questioned, research from the NIDS-CRAM initiative, led by Dr Nic Spaull of Stellenbosch University, showed that the grant, which has now risen to R370, had a significant positive impact on the lives of millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SRD grant could soon become a basic income grant, with Ramaphosa saying it is still part of the Government of National Unity&#8217;s (GNU&#8217;s) plans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It is difficult to think of an economic policymaker who has left such an enduring legacy,&#8221; said the BER in reference to Mboweni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following his resignation as Finance Minister, Mboweni returned to the private sector, joining the boards of Accelerate and Discovery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/794612\/changes-for-private-school-calendars-in-south-africa-for-2025\/\">Changes for private school calendars in South Africa for 2025<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Economic reforms spearheaded by Former Finance Minister Tito Mboweni are a major reason for the lack of load shedding in over 200 days. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":795334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26,3619,11401],"class_list":["post-795324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-headline","tag-sarb","tag-tito-mboweni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795324"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":795385,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795324\/revisions\/795385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}