Geopolitics of the energy transition: Part 2

Small but well-funded and vociferous groups of environmental activists and lawyers are blocking exploration for gas both offshore and onshore. They are also now objecting to the construction of gas-fired power stations and facilities to import gas. In neighbouring Mozambique, internal discontent is being exploited by external forces, delaying production at what has been described as a global game-changer for world gas markets.

One of my current areas of work is the energy transition in South Africa. In 2022 I co-authored two important pieces on this in the online publication New Frame. Unfortunately, New Frame has since shut down and those articles no longer appear in internet searches so I am republishing them here.

Note that the geopolitics of energy, and gas in particular, changed dramatically in some parts of the world after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with knock-on effects for the issues described below. We may incorporate those considerations into writing elsewhere.

Gas is a game-changer and the players are plotting

By: Mike Muller

By: Seán Mfundza Muller

Illustrator: Anastasya Eliseeva

22 Apr 2022

In the second of two articles on the energy transition, the battle for gas exploration in South Africa is explored – and why the production delays in Mozambique suit some interests.

Yet at last year’s COP26 climate change conference in Scotland, the global consensus was that gas will be a vital transitional fuel. And rich countries, along with their businesses, continue to implement projects that will use gas on their terms and for their profit.

Mozambique’s gas fields, offshore of Cabo Delgado province in the north, are among the most valuable in the region. Over a decade ago, it became apparent that the development of those deposits could transform Mozambique into a major global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter. Properly managed, gas development could help transform Mozambique into a middle-income country. But it has also put it on the front line of global energy geopolitics. And this is reflected in the current insurgency and destabilisation in Cabo Delgado.

In January, a consortium led by Italian energy company Eni took delivery of Africa’s first floating gas plant, built in South Korea. Anchored off the coast of Cabo Delgado, it is due to start production later this year. However, the large onshore developments that would increase production eightfold are on hold owing to security concerns.

The consortium led by French company Total, which had already begun to build its production facilities, has declared force majeure and halted work. The United States’ Exxon has delayed its “final investment decision” from 2021 to 2023. Further economic casualties of the conflict include gas-based opportunities for electricity generation and industrial development, including fertiliser production that could have supplied the whole Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

The security challenges that would be created by Mozambique’s gas reserves were already being discussed in 2010. Not long afterwards, the World Bank warned that the prospect of huge gas revenues might destabilise the whole region, a prediction that has come to pass in dramatic fashion. Corruption at the highest levels of Mozambique’s government left the country effectively insolvent, with former minister of finance Manuel Chang in a South African jail awaiting extradition to the US. The insurgency in Cabo Delgado has required security forces from SADC and beyond to stabilise.

Many roleplayers, many interests

Much attention has, correctly, focused on the domestic drivers of the conflict: inequality, a lack of opportunity and rampant and well-publicised gross corruption by the Mozambican elite. But external forces have also played a critical role. Blackwater, a notorious US security contractor, was seen as a leading contender for contracts to provide security in Cabo Delgado.

Eni is working with China and South Korea’s oil companies, Portugal’s Galp Energia and Mozambique’s national hydrocarbon company ENH, which is a part of all the consortiums. But the full potential of their development will only be achieved when Exxon builds its onshore liquefaction facilities. Total’s consortium includes Asian gas users (Japan, India and Thailand) and is working with Exxon, which has proposed cooperation to reduce production costs for both consortia.

However, Exxon – and the US – have obvious conflicts of interest. Mozambique’s gas development could weaken the dominant position of the LNG market leaders Australia, Qatar and, increasingly, the US itself. Exxon has admitted that the Rovuma Basin discoveries in northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania “will be a game-changer for the world’s energy markets”.

The importance of Mozambique to US energy policy is illustrated by American involvement being led personally by Rex Tillerson, in two separate roles: first as chief executive of Exxon Mobil and then as Donald Trump’s secretary of state. The efforts by Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, to gain control of the maritime security opportunities are suggestive. So too is the fact that Mozambique’s loan scandal was driven, in large measure, by attempts to raise money to fund local companies to provide these services.

To put it directly: has the insurgency provided Exxon with a useful excuse to delay the big onshore development that would dramatically expand Mozambique’s production, thereby conveniently protecting Exxon’s other production centres? Even if the Mozambican projects resume, full planned production will have been delayed by some years, keeping world market prices higher to the benefit of existing producers like Exxon. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the US will be the largest LNG exporter this year.

This perspective on Mozambique and the wider world of global hydrocarbons is relevant to South Africa, and the focus on gas is important.

Skewing the frame

Much of the climate and energy strategies – and legal fees – of South Africa’s non-governmental organisations and civil coalitions appear to be focused on opposing gas-related developments. Their simplistic and populist narrative frames the issues as a choice between apparently cheap and easy renewables or hydrocarbons.

This superficially attractive approach ignores both the costs of replacing the national energy infrastructure and the limits of intermittent sources like wind and solar. And it assumes, without evidence, that a transition from coal-fired power to clean energy can be achieved without using gas.

Drawing on global consensus, the government’s 2019 integrated resource plan (IRP) considered some of the objections that had been formally submitted. It noted that “gas is considered a transition fuel globally and it provides the flexibility necessary to run a system like we have in a cost effective manner. It is cleaner than other fossil fuels. The extent of the gas contained in the draft IRP is within the imposed emissions reduction trajectory.”

Perhaps the problem is that, in energy planning terms, the IRP only provides a short-term perspective, until 2030, that does not reveal the challenge of managing a system with a large proportion of intermittent renewables like wind and solar.

The IRP 2030 scenario projections show that while 33% of the grid’s nameplate generating capacity – the maximum rated output – would come from wind and solar and 43% from coal, those renewables would only produce 24% of the system’s energy compared with coal’s 59%. Nuclear and hydropower would represent just 8.2% of generating capacity, but they produce almost 13% of the system’s energy because they offer consistent and predictable supply at high load factors.

The real challenge will be faced after 2030. As the proportion of intermittent renewables continues to grow, complementary sources of generation or storage must also be increased to compensate for periods in which solar and wind is not available. Complementary infrastructure will likely be more costly and take longer than the rollout of renewables, so delaying it will simply stall the transition.

A place for gas

Faced with this challenge, countries like Germany and Britain, leading advocates for zero carbon strategies, have committed to using gas for another two to three decades as a core element of their energy transition. This is despite their access to complementary sources of power, through Europe’s continent-wide grid to Norwegian hydropower, French nuclear and Danish wind, which will help them manage the intermittency of local wind and solar generation.

South Africa does not have such complementary sources. Critics’ comments recorded in the IRP show little evidence that they had any technically feasible alternatives, let alone suggestions on how to fund them. Proposals were limited to vague “flexible renewable generation” or “energy storage technologies” without suggesting what they would be or how they could be afforded.

One representative from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research admitted in a radio interview that its proposals simply assumed that storage costs would come down enough over the next decade to make higher shares of renewable energy feasible. Even this is based on the assumption that storage is only needed for a few hours of generation and ignores the risk of the longer-term supply reductions already experienced in Europe and the US. At best, the suggested “all renewable” investment route would put South Africa’s energy security at risk in a way that no other sizeable country is doing.

There is presently no proposed solution that can reliably and affordably provide South Africa’s energy requirements purely from intermittent renewables. While storage technologies are progressing, the cost of long-term (multi-day) storage remains prohibitive. South Africa’s pumped storage schemes are currently among the cheapest technologies for large-scale energy storage, but an installation like Ingula, which can only store enough to generate 1 300MW for less than a day, cost R36 billion.

Costly delays

Important local work on energy storage and the production of “green hydrogen” from renewable energy could be supported since it may offer global opportunities for South African mining and manufacturing. But it will take many years to be brought to scale and deploy, not least because of the massive investment needed in dedicated wind and solar power and Sasol-size production plants.

And, if “green hydrogen” eventually becomes commercially viable, it would best be used to generate electricity in the kinds of natural gas-fired generators that are now being blocked. In this respect, renewable power activism is leading South Africa off course right at the start of the transition marathon.

The latest example is the legal action opposing the construction of gas-fired power stations at Richards Bay and Durban that are to be fuelled by imported gas. But one reason for these developments is that gas exploration onshore and offshore has been repeatedly delayed.

It is the failure to develop local gas resources that has allowed the much-criticised Karpowership “emergency” generation proposal to succeed. The ship will burn gas and it requires no local production or importation infrastructure, offering minimal local development benefits.

South Africans need to stop their dangerously narrow focus on one particular element, or definition, of the energy transition and think much more carefully about how to achieve a genuinely just and viable transition.

The question also has to be asked: who benefits from the current rush to privatised forms of renewable energy, especially since it does not take seriously the interests either of workers and the impoverished in general or economic viability and national sovereignty?

Seán Muller does not receive any funding, or have any other conflicts of interest, related to the subject of this article.

Mike Muller’s pension is invested in, among others, renewable and conventional energy and construction companies.

First published by New Frame.

Geopolitics of the energy transition: Part 1

At present, groups with strong vested interests are encouraging South Africa to make a fast and radical transition without explaining how the costs incurred in doing so will be paid and by whom. Worse, they want the country to do this in a way that would reduce the income it could earn to fund the transition.

Who gets the ‘dirty’ profits while going for ‘clean’?

By: Mike Muller
By: Seán Mfundza Muller

21 Apr 2022

Analysis

In the first of two articles on the energy transition that must happen across the world, it’s clear that coal will be around for years to come. Less clear is who will benefit from it.

Current proposals for an energy transition in South Africa are wholly inadequate. The energy transition is a marathon that will be run for at least three decades and it needs a well-considered strategy to complete successfully.

Countries that try to sprint from the start are likely to fall by the wayside. Yet the popular narrative promoted in South Africa doesn’t move beyond the cheap populism that simply asserts that Eskom and fossil fuel-based energy production are evils that need to be got rid of at the greatest possible speed.

The world must undoubtedly transition to a new energy system, but it will be a hugely complex and costly project. To make a successful transition, each country – and community – will have to address its specific challenges.

For a country as unequal as South Africa, a primary concern will be to ensure a genuinely “just transition”. It should not impose unreasonable burdens on ordinary South Africans, particularly workers and the impoverished, through retrenchments, extra taxes, unreasonable energy price hikes or reduced public services. The transition strategy must consider the implications for public finances, therefore, and it must also consider the implications for national sovereignty and stability.

The current model for transition to green energy is through rapid privatisation. It amounts to a form of self-imposed structural adjustment that threatens to repeat the economic policy mistakes of the 1990s. These collapsed the manufacturing sector of the economy and closed many paths to a more inclusive and prosperous society.

Weaker and more dependent

Meanwhile, the wildly overhyped promised external support for a just transition in South Africa is limited. Close inspection of the “green financing” deal for the country, announced with much fanfare at the COP26 climate change conference held in Scotland in November last year, reveals unfavourable terms and little real financial support.

Populist campaigns that push for the swiftest possible transition to privatised forms of green energy production are likely to contribute to turning an already difficult transition into a brutal one. Instead of ensuring that South Africa can design, fuel and fund its transition primarily from domestic resources, it will become even more dependent on energy imports and conditional external funding.

This will reduce its ability to negotiate trade and finance deals, including for renewable energy investments, further undermining its economic sovereignty. It will weaken public finances and reduce the resources needed to address poverty and inequality in a sustainable way. And history shows that weakened sovereignty on these fronts can weaken political sovereignty as well.

While many domestic commentators like to frame South Africa as some kind of energy pariah, this does not hold up against a global perspective. Globally, South Africa is being outplayed by more powerful nations who seek to maximise their returns from their hydrocarbon resources while they still can.

Take Australia. Back in 1981, its national intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, warned then-prime minister Malcolm Fraser that by the middle of the 21st century, CO₂ emissions would cause climatic change that “would require major economic and social adjustments”.

The primary concern for Australia was not climate change. It was rather the “potentially adverse implication … for the security of Australia’s export markets for coal”. The country’s response was simple and is now a matter of public record. It ramped up coal production to maximise its carbon income before the fateful day arrived. It also encouraged the exploitation of its offshore gas fields. So today Australia is not only the world’s largest coal exporter, but also the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) – although in total gas exports (LNG and pipeline) it is only fifth in the world.

Making hay while sun still shines

Other rich countries are following similar strategies to Australia’s. Canada has a relatively low-carbon domestic electricity system, thanks to extensive hydropower and nuclear generating capacity. But despite local opposition, Canada continues to exploit its huge reserves of dramatically dirty “tar sands” despite the extreme environmental and social damage. The aim is to produce oil for export, maximising its hydrocarbon income while it still can.

Canada’s big neighbour, the United States, is even more aggressive. In the 1970s, the US produced much of its electricity from local coal. For transport fuels, however, it depended on oil imports from cheap but politically unstable, or destabilised, Middle East countries.

Like Canada, the US has huge, potentially valuable reserves of gas and oil in shale rocks that are difficult to tap. Fracking technologies, developed with support from the government, have solved the technical problems and transformed the country’s energy sector. Expanded gas supplies are replacing coal for electricity generation, enabling a significant reduction in CO₂ emissions. This has turned the US into a net exporter, with both the Trump and Biden administrations aggressively promoting LNG exports.

As energy prices fluctuate dramatically worldwide, providing transitional solutions – dirty old coal – remains a highly profitable business. AGL Energy, which is responsible for 8% of Australia’s CO₂ emissions, rejected a bid from US private equity company Brookfield saying it was well below fair value. AGL Energy intends to continue using coal until 2045, which will help it to build a renewables business.

In South Africa, the future value of a few decades of coal-fired business was demonstrated when Anglo American sold its local coal business to Thungela Resources, a black economic empowerment company, in June last year. Thungela’s share price has since gone up over 600%, with most of that rise happening even before the Ukraine crisis.

The importance of local mining production for public finances was demonstrated by the tax windfall from higher commodity prices that helped to relieve the post-Covid fiscal shock, just as it boosted public finances before the global financial crisis of 2007.

Worsening inequity

So whether one likes it or not, profits will continue to be made from fossil fuels during the energy transition. The question now is who will capture those profits and for whose benefit will they be used? A just transition would see the transitional profits go to the more impoverished countries that bear the heaviest burdens. That’s not currently happening and, if anything, the present trajectory suggests the inequity will worsen.

As Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, put it earlier in March, developing countries need “a way to finance our route to net zero”. And if the wealthy nations that “caused the problems” would not provide funding, these countries would need to find other ways to generate revenue, such as exporting fossil fuels. “There has to be equity,” she told a Financial Times climate conference.

Historically, wealthy countries have been reluctant to really pay their share. In 2007, the then Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa proposed that wealthy countries pay Ecuador not to drill for oil in an Amazon rainforest reserve. In other words, he wanted them to compensate Ecuadoreans for the national revenue they would lose by keeping oil in the ground. Of the $3.6 billion proposed, only $13 million was forthcoming and the oil drilling in the Amazon went ahead.

The question that motivated Correa was simple: why should poor countries sacrifice much-needed revenues from exploiting natural resources when rich countries that can better afford this sacrifice are often not doing so? This same question can be applied in South Africa and beyond to other Southern African Development Community countries that have strong incentives to “monetise” their hydrocarbon reserves to help fund the building of their domestic power systems and economies.

The stated aim of virtually all campaigns in South Africa at present is to achieve a “just transition”. But analysis of South Africa’s options, supported by evidence from the rest of the world, suggests that their effect is more likely to impose an unnecessarily brutal transition on the majority of South Africans and a loss of energy and political sovereignty.

Séan Muller does not receive any funding, or have any other conflicts of interest, related to the subject of this article.

Mike Muller’s pension is invested in, among others, renewable and conventional energy and construction companies.

This article was first published by New Frame.

News24’s hypocrisy and failure on Israel-Palestine

Not only did News24 completely ignore the Amnesty International report but it even went to the extent of taking down an article on the Israel-Palestine issue that it had accidentally syndicated in which South Africa’s foreign minister called for Israel to be declared an apartheid state.

The recent escalation in violence in Israel-Palestine has been met with a flood of reactions in traditional and social media. In both instances these reveal a shift in responses to this long-running issue. One thing that has struck me the most is that people and organisations who once ignored or were hostile to those who called Israel ‘an apartheid state’, even after a credible Amnesty International report came to that conclusion, have suddenly discovered that this actually has some legitimacy.

It is particularly strange that they should do so in a time of violence in which Israeli civilians have been killed in large numbers. Why would it be that certain people and organisations suddenly conclude that the oppression of Palestinians is bad in a moment when the first victims of violence were Israelis? Where was this sentiment when Palestinians were being killed and brutalised on a regular basis by the Israel military?

I will write a separate piece about what I think lies behind the current dynamics but here I just want to share some letters I exchanged with the editors of, and Ombud for, News24. According to media surveys, News24 is South Africa’s most-read online news source and supposedly ‘the most trusted’ source of news in South Africa. Not only did News24 completely ignore the Amnesty International report but it even went to the extent of taking down an article on the Israel-Palestine issue that it had accidentally syndicated in which South Africa’s foreign minister called for Israel to be declared an apartheid state. This provides important context for the sudden about-face by at least one of its editors, who was copied on some of that correspondence.

Interestingly, after my complaint News24 started publishing more pieces on the Israel-Palestine situation but continued in its failure to report on Amnesty International and other formal calls for Israel to be declared an apartheid state.

Only in recent months (in 2023) has there been a more substantial shift. But a striking pattern is that – after years of omission and one-sided reporting – News24 only acknowledge the apartheid analogy when it is made by individuals who previously had been active in denying the validity of the comparison (such as this article which cites Benjamin Pogrund), or actively involved in enforcing apartheid in Israel-Palestine (such as this article on remarks by a former Mossad commander). News24 syndicated this piece by Pogrund in August 2023. It is notable from the URL that it did so under the heading of its Ombud/public editor (George Claassen) who previously dismissed my concerns as unsubstantiated.

In short, the recent shift in News24’s reporting conceals a systematic and deliberate bias that denied the oppressive nature of the Israeli state across decades – much as certain media houses during apartheid played a key role in propping up successive apartheid governments by denying that what they were doing was wrong. While the shift here and internationally may well be desirable, those who were complicit should not be allowed to whitewash their histories. (For my expression of similar concerns about apartheid propagandists see this letter to Business Day).

Complaint to News24 on coverage of Israel-Palestine

The initial concern that I raised with News24’s Ombudsman in February 2022 was that News24 had failed to publish a single article on the Amnesty International report:

Gmail-A-glaring-failure-to-report_redacted Download

The Ombud referred this to the editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson. After no reply, I followed-up a month later noting also the strange disjuncture between News24’s reporting on Ukraine compared to the Israel-Palestine situation:

Gmail-A-glaring-failure-to-report_followup_redacted Download

I then received the following reply in which one of the editors sought to paint the non-reporting as merely an ‘oversight’. This is clearly not credible given how many News24 articles concern trivial topics and, more importantly, how consistent its reporting had been in favour of the Israeli state. The links provided are to opinion pieces or/and pieces in other publications. One of the only substantive pieces was published after my letter of concern had been sent to the editor.

Gmail-A-glaring-failure-to-report_reply1_redacted-1 Download

There was an interesting increase in News24 articles on the broader issue after this exchange, but those continued to have a strong slant and the only mention

I was reminded of the issue later in the year when News24 briefly syndicated an article on South Africa’s foreign minister calling for Israel to be declared an apartheid state and then deleted it. The evidence of the deletion is still available online:

Here is my follow-up email:

Gmail-A-glaring-failure-to-report_part2_redacted Download

The combination of these two issues is damning: News24 systematically failed to publish any news article on the Amnesty International report that declared Israel to be an apartheid state; News24 censored a story that it had syndicated in which South Africa’s foreign minister called for Israel to be formally declared an apartheid state, and published no article of its own on that major news item.

Despite this evidence, the public editor George Claassen immediately responded claiming that “your accusation of bias, that is a rather harsh accusation without any evidence”. At which point it became evident to me that News24’s internal accountability mechanisms were toothless and themselves hopelessly biased.

Gmail-A-glaring-failure-to-report_replytoOmbud_redact-1-1 Download

Having referred my concern to editors to response and expressed his own opinion without engaging with the substance, the Ombud then nevertheless took it upon himself to provide the response (see below).

In this response he seeks to manufacture an excuse for removing the story about South Africa’s foreign minister calling for Israel to be declared an apartheid state. The absurdity of the explanation – that the story was taken down as “a precautionary measure by the night editor to ensure that the journalist interpreted the news conference by Minister Naledi Pandor correctly” – is evident from the fact that News24 did not subsequently publish a ‘correct’ story of its own.

Similarly, the vast majority of the stories he lists were published after my initial complaint, or were opinion pieces, or where from other publication.

Since it seemed obvious that the Ombud had pre-emptively decided to defend News24’s conduct and create a justification for that decision after the fact, I did waste my time further by replying to their last email.

The public record, and this correspondence, serves as evidence of what I suggest is News24’s wilful and grossly hypocritical bias that renders it complicit in misrepresentations that serve as an obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the Israel-Palestine situation.

Palestine-Israel-reporting-by-News24_Claassen_SMMcomments Download

Disingenuous economics

Today a new paper in the World Bank Research Observer by Banerjee, Hanna, Kreindler and Olken announced that there is “no systematic evidence” to support the view that social transfers discourage work. Under different circumstances I might be pleased by this, since I have long believed that claims about welfare-induced voluntary unemployment are mostly ideology-driven garbage. But I am not happy about this paper.

The reason is that the way in which it is written implies that the ‘welfare-induced laziness’ thesis is something conjured up by policymakers and members of the public from thin air. To quote:

despite these proven gains, policy-makers and even the public at large often express concerns about whether transfer programs discourage work.

The authors position themselves, as economists rigorously assessing evidence, against the puzzlingly misguided ‘policymakers’ and ‘public at large’. From this, one would think that economists do not hold such beliefs and have not contributed to them. But you’d be wrong. In fact, a paper published in the World Bank Economic Review in 2003 by Bertrand, Mullainathan and Miller (BMM) claimed that the South African old age pension led young, black men in pension-receiving households to reduce their labour supply. This had a significant impact in South African policy circles, leading a number of local social scientists to challenge the findings of the paper.

Posel, Fairburn and Lund (2006) argued that BMM didn’t adequately account for migration, which changed the conclusions. When I was a Master’s student at UCT in 2006 I wrote a term paper – using data kindly provided by Posel – arguing, further, that BMM’s result using cross-sectional data couldn’t possibly be robust to household formation dynamics:

The primary aim of this paper is demonstrating that, based on existing evidence, one can make at least as strong a case that the pension influences household formation, as that it affects labour supply.

I referred to the BMM paper as a case of ‘perverse priors’. A different approach to the same point by Ranchod (2006) examined the effect of losing a pensioner and his findings called into question the conclusion about labour supply of young men. Ardington, Case and Hosegood (2009) later used panel data to show that differences between households along with migration could explain the finding, rather than an actual reduction in labour supply. To quote them:

Specifically, we quantify the labor supply responses of prime-aged individuals to changes in the presence of pensioners, using longitudinal data collected in KwaZulu-Natal. Our ability to compare households and individuals before and after pension receipt, and pension loss, allows us to control for a host of unobservable household and individual characteristics that may determine labor market behavior. We find that large cash transfers to elderly South Africans lead to increased employment among prime-aged members of their households, a result that is masked in cross-sectional analysis by differences between pension and non-pension households. Pension receipt also influences where this employment takes place. We find large, significant effects on labor migration upon pension arrival.

So, in the South African case, it was well-regarded, US-based economists publishing in a World Bank journal in 2003 who gave credence to the idea that grant receipt led to idleness. Much effort was expended debunking those claims and preventing them from having harmful effects on progressive social policy. It is, therefore, rather outrageous that in 2017 another set of well-regarded, US-based economists publishing in a World Bank journal can pretend as if this never happened.

In my view, this kind of behaviour is characteristic of the failure of critical self-reflection, and taking of responsibility, in economics as a discipline. And it should serve as a cautionary tale to non-economists and economists alike.

Submission to Parliament on Money Bills Act amendments

The Money Bills Act is the legislation that guides Parliament’s oversight of South Africa’s budget and related legislation. I have written previously on that process. The Act has been up for review for some time, and the finance and appropriations committees have had a number of meetings recently to finalise that process. The result is a draft amendment Bill, which I have attempted to explain in an accessible way.

Further to that article, I submitted written comments and made a presentation based on those this week. The audio, relevant documents and meeting report will appear on the relevant Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) website in due course. Access is restricted though, so here are the slides and written submission.

Unfortunately the very limited time available between the call for comments and the deadline for submission (two weeks) also placed some limits on the depth of the analysis. One issue I neglected to address, which was raised by the opposition in the meeting, is that the current Act emphasises – in clause 15(2) – that the PBO should take its work from committees. That is potentially problematic where committee decisions are ultimately determined by a majority party.

Unfortunately, this point became politicised due to disagreements about whether the current committees had allowed partisan considerations to determine what work requests were sent to the PBO. My view is that regardless of what one thinks about the current situation, it is certainly not hard to envisage a situation in which a hypothetical majority party uses its weight on committees to ensure that potentially inconvenient work is not sent the PBO’s way. That could significantly reduce the usefulness of the Office. The broad point I made in my presentation is that our institutions should be designed to be robust to such scenarios. It is for that reason that I agreed with the suggestion that this clause should be amended, or that the clause allowing work to be taken from individual MPs “subject to capacity” – clause 15(3) – be amended to allow the Director discretion based on importance of the request.

It will be interesting to see the final conclusions reached by MPs in relation to these issues and proposals. Given the calibre of MPs on both the majority party and opposition benches on these committees, I am cautiously optimistic that decisions will be taken in the long-term national interest.

Decolonising the South African economics curriculum

This week I attended the ‘Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) in the South‘ conference hosted by the University of Johannesburg, where I presented a paper entitled: “What would an (South) African economics curriculum look like?”. (A project I have gestured at previously when commenting on discussions around UCT’s economics curriculum – here, here – and promised to do a follow-up on).

The paper can be found in the published conference proceedings here [pdf]. The short slide presentation can be downloaded from here [pdf].

The conference itself was interesting and included a number of different perspectives, and opinions, on the question of ‘decolonisation’. The conclusion I came to was that there are two main aspects to this issue: institutional change and disciplinary change. And in both cases we need to start talking details, because that’s where the really hard work will start and become apparent. In this context, my paper aims to make a contribution in relation to the discipline of economics.

In the end, my discussion of what should go in the curriculum is very limited. One reason is because of the word limit for contributions, but the main reason is that I found there to be many preliminary issues that required fleshing-out first. Some of the more provocative, and important, assertions I make are that:

Demographic transformation of faculty is important in its own right, but should not be conflated or confused with substantive transformation of the curriculum
Changing content by introducing certain topics is important but need not lead to the imagined outcomes, it depends on the framing of those topics (e.g. North American economic history arguing that slavery was not such a bad thing)
The awkward reality that South African academic economics and its institutions is largely characterised by a weak attempt at imitating a lagged, conservative version of the neoclassical mainstream
A substantively ‘decolonised’ curriculum would be much more challenging than the standard mainstream curriculum – so concerns about ‘lowering of standards’ are misplaced in that context
Our biggest challenge is the massive gulf between what an ideal, decolonised curriculum looks like and what we (African economists) actually have the capacity to do.

Feedback on any and all aspects of the paper are very welcome.

I intend to get into much more detail regarding an ‘ideal curriculum’ in a second paper, hopefully with some collaborators.

Edit: here is the stand-alone version of my final paper submitted to the SOTL proceedings.

Statement regarding the Parliamentary Budget Office and recent CCMA award

The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) was established to provide Parliament with independent technical advice to support it in exercising oversight of public finances. The importance of this role should be evident given the recent Cabinet reshuffle and ratings agency downgrades, which have raised concerns about public debt, public service pension funds, a prospective nuclear deal and the finances of state-owned enterprises amongst others. These are all matters about which a functioning PBO would be expected to provide credible insight and guidance to Parliamentarians.

There are, however, serious concerns regarding the functioning of the Office. These relate to the content and objectivity of its advice. This became apparent to me shortly after I joined the PBO in 2014. The resulting dynamics in the office led me to resign in 2016, and were also the basis for an unfair labour practice complaint brought against the PBO at the CCMA.

On the 26th of April 2017 the CCMA issued the commissioner’s award, which did not find in my favour on the narrow labour issues raised. While I am disappointed with this outcome, it is important to place the case in the broader context of the need for a competent, functional and credible PBO that is beyond reproach. In this regard, the Commissioner held that – as I had testified – the Director of the PBO had indeed offered to provide me with the interview questions for the position, I had declined the offer, and he had lied about this in his testimony (i.e. under oath). This example was only one of a number of issues raised in the process, but on its own raises very serious questions about the functioning and management of the office.

The Act governing the PBO is expected to be reviewed and amended later this year. In that process, the end goal must remain paramount: to build an independent, technically and ethically credible institution that the public and Members of Parliament can rely on for non-partisan analysis of public finance issues that is conducted without fear or favour.

Internationally, similar institutions are expected to maintain the highest standards of objectivity and political neutrality; standards that the South African PBO has failed to demonstrate. Perhaps the most famous international example is the Canadian PBO, which in 2011 produced a costing for parliamentarians of the government’s fighter jet procurement plan that was significantly higher than the estimates the government had published. The Office was attacked by the Prime Minister at the time, but supported by society at large and subsequently vindicated: government eventually acknowledged that the costs were higher than originally stated and the procurement remains on hold. The Canadian example is in marked contrast to the South African PBO’s analysis of the desirability and feasibility of the proposed nuclear energy procurement. The PBO’s report failed to cost the project, or assess its implications for public finances. In a more recent example from Kenya, the country’s PBO raised concerns about omission of a large increase in debt repayments from budget documents.

Since some of the issues raised at the CCMA go to the heart of these expectations, and it is my view that the basis for its finding is deeply and materially flawed, I am considering taking the award on review to the Labour Court. This is an expensive option – the estimated cost is R500,000 or more, and is prohibitive for an individual. However, the basis on which staff are appointed to, and promoted in, PBOs is one of the most critical factors in their success. Combined with the importance of the PBO and the upcoming amendment of its governing legislation, public interest organisations may find this case to be an appropriate mechanism through which to contribute to the establishment of the kind of PBO the country deserves.

Some thoughts on the Finance Minister’s adviser and his critics

The debate around the new Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s new adviser, Chris Malikane, has gone beyond the deeply flawed proposals he has made, to claims about his academic credentials and integrity. I want to agree that the proposals are flawed, but that some of the attacks on Malikane are as well. Furthermore, they draw attention to some serious issues in South African academic economics that require mature discussion.

Most of the 8-page ‘manifesto’ published, and extensively publicised in various articles and interviews by Malikane, is not worthy of serious analysis. (Although one effort to take it seriously, by Charles Simkins, is worth reading – as is the more acerbic piece by Richard Poplak). It is primarily a political document and contains no substantive content relating to economic policy and public finance. There’s a crude Marxist analysis of class, and a shopping list of things that should be nationalised and services that should be provided. The only interesting assertion is that the working class should throw their weight behind those black South Africans who have become an elite through corrupt government tenders, rather than through credit-based black empowerment schemes. Like the other assertions, no serious justification is provided. But it certainly explains why Malikane’s radicalism has found favour with Gigaba, whose predecessor appeared to be successfully blocking a range of efforts at tender-related corruption by individuals associated either with the President or the Gupta family. The thinking from Gigaba – a man better known by some for tabloid stories, tailored suits, expensive ties and appearances on Top Billing – may have been that Malikane would provide some solidity to the fig leaf of ‘radical economic transformation’, while Malikane – who has otherwise been quietly exerting influence in left-wing, or trade union movements for some time – clearly thought that his revolutionary moment had arrived.

Some have attempted to defend Malikane on the basis of his academic credentials – to the point of also insisting that his evidently wrong-headed proposals (such as ‘expropriating banks’) cannot be criticised except through detailed academic analysis. At which point it is useful to invoke a phrase attributed to the Italian computer programmer Alberto Brandolini: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it”. Just because the minister’s adviser has published some academic papers on other subjects does not mean we must presume that his manifesto carries additional weight. Indeed, the primary disappointment for many who had reasonably high opinion of Malikane up to this point is quite how threadbare his analysis and proposals are.

Where things are getting messy, however, is in attacks on Malikane’s academic credentials. These in fact open-up a big can of worms regarding the state of South African academic economics. (One reason I have been delayed in writing a comment on the Malikane’s saga is that I had been drafting a conference paper on what ‘decolonisation of the curriculum’ might mean for South African economics).

Understanding Peer Review in Economics

It turns out that the issue of decolonising economics is closely related to some of the misguided aspects of attacks on Malikane. The first, by Stuart Theobald, starts off well enough by noting that Malikane’s published, peer-reviewed work either has relatively little relation to his recent arguments or even – in some cases – seems to contradict those arguments. This is a particularly useful point to make for those who, naively, argue that Malikane’s arguments must be substantive because he has published some academic papers. Where Theobald strays into dangerous territory is in his inferences about Malikane’s integrity and assertions about the wonders of academic peer review.

Theobald’s characterisation of peer review in economics makes me suspect that he has never published anything in the discipline. Very few academics I have come across or read, including Nobel prize winners, have such a rosy view of the peer review process; in practice it is far from the notional ideal of a meritocratic system in which originality and quality are what determine publication. And any problems – of cronyism, bias toward researchers in certain institutions, ideological influences and so forth – are amplified if the basic thrust of your work is critical of, or very different to, the dominant narrative. It does not surprise me that Theobald, given his demographic, views on economic policy and his area of work (banking and finance), might not be able to appreciate this.

Which brings us to the issue of whether Malikane is dishonest for publishing work with conclusions he does not agree with. My short answer: no. It might be inadvisable, and it is something I personally try to avoid doing (at some cost), but the system is structured in such a way that it can self-sabotaging to only publish what you believe rather than what you can do. (Some have suggested that there should be betting markets in which economists show their confidence in their empirical claims by putting money on it). Either you will publish in journals not recognised by your peers, or your career will stall at a junior level – and the associated administration and teaching burdens limiting the very time you need for that ‘against the current’ research that is so good it breaks into the mainstream. When co-authors are involved this is even more difficult. These challenges are essentially what Malikane is gesturing at when he says, quoted by Theobald:

Don’t confuse my academic writing and what I believe to be true…you know the business of publishing is so ideologically poisoned that what is published is not necessarily scientific…we sometimes write in order to simply play in the publishing game…not necessarily because we think what we publish is correct…there is heavy ideological repression in academia…

Theobald paints this as sinister and possibly an “act of intellectual dishonesty”. He softens that with a few acknowledgements that Malikane is basically right, but then returns to a naive notion of academic publishing.

Finally, Theobald makes the important point that we should not try and judge Malikane the person but rather “whether he has good evidence and reasoning for his claims”. Unfortunately, he then goes completely off the rails by saying that: “until [Malikane] publishes them in a way that involves assessment by his peers, we must assume he does not”. Which peers? In what journal? I doubt Malikane would have trouble publishing in the Review of African Political Economy, but would Theobald accept that as adequate? (Leaving aside that he is not an academic economist, so it’s not clear what basis he would use).

Regardless, as an academic economist who has also worked in the public sector, I would never accept a policy claim just because someone had managed to publish a paper on it; the idea that successful peer review in economics shows that a claim is ’right’ is completely misguided, and any economist who advised a minister on that basis should also be fired.

There Are Many Flavours of ‘Bogus Economist’

This usefully brings us to the even more problematic contribution by Co-Pierre Georg. Let me start by saying that I was interested, albeit surprised to see – in Georg’s somewhat crudely-stated concern about ‘white male patriarchs’ – channelling critiques I myself have made in the past of untransformed gerontocracies and academics behaving like rent seekers. I have, also, for some time been politely raising concerns with various role players about such dynamics at an organisation where Georg has been an associate for some time; I hope Georg is as vocal on such matters of principle within his institutions, and even when it is personally inconvenient.

The basic assertion of Georg’s article is that people should not trust ‘bogus economists’. Hard to disagree with, but the devil is in the detail. In my draft conference paper on decolonisation, I made some similar critiques of the quality of the local academic economics to those discussed by Georg. Beyond that, though, we are again in swampy terrain. Georg’s assertion basically translates as: ‘people should not trust economists I think are bogus, which obviously doesn’t include me, my co-authors, patrons, friends, etc’. It’s not a new trick, including for fake radicals in economics. In a recent comment an otherwise respected senior scholar in macroeconomics (Paul Romer) published a rather disgraceful attack on various other economists for what he calls ‘mathiness’. Among these was one of the most famous female economists of the 20^th century, Joan Robinson, who by virtue of her gender, left-wing views, and being dead, was perhaps an obvious target for Romer. Critiques of excessive or inappropriate use of mathematics in economics are as old as the modern version of the discipline itself. But a close reading of Romer’s critique reveals a petty, self-serving definition of the crime: when economists he doesn’t like use mathematics they are guilty of mathiness, whereas when economists he does like (obviously including himself) use mathematics then it’s done properly. Georg’s argument boils down to a similarly crude skeleton. (Romer, incidentally, was then appointed chief economist at the World Bank – illustrating how dysfunctional economics can be in other places).

Furthermore, Georg peddles a version of how economics can inform policy that is popular with certain types of academic economists, but bears little relation to reality. In this model, people who can write the most complex mathematical equations, estimate the most complex econometric models and get published in high-ranked journals are best-positioned to advise on policy. This might be funny if it were not so misguided and, in its own way, dangerous. There are some individuals who have managed to make the transition from producing cutting-edge academic work (by mainstream standards) to giving good policy advice, but it is the exception rather than the norm. The last thing a finance minister needs is some social incompetent who thinks he can figure-out a policy solution by writing down an equation, running a model or looking for a ‘peer-reviewed solution’. If you need an academic perspective, your adviser talks to a deputy director general who gets someone in the research cluster to do it, or outsources it to an academic like Georg.

Yet Georg goes even further, offering to define for us what a ‘proper academic’ is. But the best he can do in this regard, like Theobald, is to refer to ‘peer review’. I have already made clear that this is a naïve, and in Georg’s case arguably self-serving, use of the notion of peer review. One can tell that Georg, like Theobald, is not exactly familiar with the challenges of swimming against the current. Or, in fact, advising on broad economic policy in the complex South African terrain.

A Necessary Debate

In some ways, the great tragedy of the Malikane saga is that, in principle, he should have been in a position to be a very good adviser – albeit one with strong left-wing views. While the likes of Theobald and Georg might be good advisors at lower levels of the hierarchy on specific issues relating to banking and finance, Malikane’s broad credentials should have made him a better choice for a general adviser to a minister. Given that, fortunately, it looks like his manifesto will have no impact whatsoever – with various politicians suddenly realising that talking-up radical economic transformation is a bad idea if it means emptying the fiscus you had planned on appropriating – the most harm done is to Malikane himself. But he has also damaged the possibility of more open discussions about economic and fiscal policy, which means that in fact those who should be most angry with him are economists (including myself) who believe such a conversation is sorely needed.

The bigger picture that Theobald and Georg’s misplaced attacks draw attention to is the state of South African academic economics. Some time ago as a student I witnessed the destructive consequences of the failure by some, otherwise very respectable, academics to reconcile tensions within the local discipline. The result, I think, has been for many to bury their heads in the sand and hope for the best. Or, less innocently, to set-up fiefdoms in which they can propagate their own views and agendas without the inconvenience of differing views.

To be fair to economists, similar behaviour happens in a range of other South African academic disciplines. However, besides the fact that this is an unhealthy state of affairs, legitimate calls for transformation and decolonisation (appropriately defined) will only ratchet-up these tensions and it would be best to address them openly and as maturely as we can. The position I have come to is in some ways rather obvious: we need to raise standards, but we also need a wide diversity of views and therefore should be pluralist in our approach to defining who is a competent economist (academic or otherwise). In that context, we would be advised to avoid doing things like accusing a fellow academic of not being a ‘proper economist’ or being ‘intellectually dishonest’, when they have a PhD from a very reputable North American institution, some competent publications, and extensive engagement and knowledge of South African civil society. When the institutional winds change, you may find that the knives are in your own back. These are surely not the kind of dynamics we want to encourage.

Reshuffles, downgrades and South Africa’s public finance drama

The last week has been tumultuous for many South Africans, not least if you are an economist concerned with public finances and the associated political economy dynamics. I had predicted that the President would make another attempt at a finance ministry-targeted reshuffle some time from the end of March onwards. The basis for that prediction was the timing of Parliament’s recess period, as I discuss in greater detail in this article.

1280x440q70170405dm — Zapiro: “Shift happens”

The new Minister has been brought in on the back of the President’s (empty) rhetoric about ‘radical economic transformation’ to benefit the majority of poor, black South Africans, but he is known more for his snappy dressing than radicalism; if the FT is correct about his favoured brand, then two of his many ties would equate to the proposed new monthly minimum wage. The combination of supposedly radical rhetoric with personal profligacy is on its own questionable, but there are many more reasons to be concerned.

It was therefore not a great surprise to many analysts when S&P downgraded South Africa’s foreign currency sovereign debt rating to sub-investment grade (‘junk’). After the downgrade by S&P, which I had also expected having paid close attention to presentations at their one-day conference in Johannesburg only a couple of weeks earlier, I provided some commentary with an emphasis on the reasons for the downgrade and possible economics and public finance implications. One of these interviews, with Ayabonga Cawe at PowerFM, is available here. In the first interview I did, on KayaFM, I made a deliberate point of stating that we should not allow anyone to mystify the obvious: that Gordhan has been removed for similar reasons to Nene, implying ‘capture of the state’ (as per the Public Protector’s report). In that context, the new finance minister simply lacks credibility and any statements made about continuity and protecting the fiscus will likely be taken with a pinch of salt.

With the inconvenient oversight of Minister Gordhan removed, the South African Revenue Services announced its final revenue collection figures for 2016/17 in a chummy press conference with the new Minister. This attempted to paint a R30bn revenue undercollection (relative to the revenue forecast in the 2016 Budget) as a success, because it exceeded the 2017 Budget forecast (i.e. the one revised down by R30bn) by R0.0003bn… Unfortunately, many journalists reporting on that event were taken in by the claims of success. I had already dealt with much of this in an article in the Finance Mail. In fact, given concerns about SARS delaying refunds to inflate collection figures, and given inadequate data submitted to Parliament, I have submitted a formal request for more detailed data to SARS and hope to follow-up on that in due course.

Needless to say, the capture of the Finance Ministry makes Parliament’s oversight role even more critical. But as I have argued in some detail (here and here), and ventilated in my CCMA case, the Parliamentary Budget Office is neither equipped, nor inclined, to provide the robust analytical support expected of it under the Money Bills Act (2009). I will have more to say about this in due course.

After the decision by S&P, Fitch has now also downgraded South Africa’s foreign and local currency sovereign debt rating: setting the stage for more dramatic consequences if another agency also downgrades local currency debt to ‘junk’.

These are dangerous times for the South African fiscus, economy and society at large.

Presentation to Parliament’s finance committees

I am now affiliated to the new Public and Environmental Economics Research Centre (PEERC) at the University of Johannesburg, within which I intend to continue putting my public finance and public economics knowledge to good use.

As already noted, I recently published an article on the legislative process that guides the adoption of Budget proposals by Parliament.

And this week, along with my colleague Jugal Mahabir (who has experience at National Treasury and the Financial and Fiscal Commission), we made a short presentation to the finance committees on the fiscal framework and revenue proposals.

The time available (4-5 days between the tabling of the Budget and the submission of public comment) limits the depth and sophistication of the analysis, but with greater preparation this is something I hope to improve on at each successive iteration.