South African president Cyril Ramaphosa recently outlined plans to solve the country’s devastating electricity supply crisis.
South Africa has had power cuts since 2007 when Eskom, the power utility, began failing to meet demand. This got worse every year. The power utility is struggling to keep its aged coal-fired power stations running after many years of poor maintenance. It is also struggling to get its two new power stations to operate at full capacity.
Explaining some of the recent power cuts, Ramaphosa said that some of the energy infrastructure had been sabotaged.
We flagged this in an earlier article. We argued that Eskom was the target of hybrid warfare operations aimed at destabilising South Africa’s national power generation capability.
The question is whether the country has the necessary security capabilities to protect its energy infrastructure from such threats and risks. An assessment of the security capabilities also has to include a fit-for-purpose test of the legislation for the protection of critical infrastructure.
Enhanced intelligence capacities are required to detect, deter and neutralise threats such as sabotage, or subversion caused by rioting. More – and appropriately equipped – security forces are also needed to physically secure critical infrastructure.
From The Shadows Emerges Knowledge