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Daily podcast – November 25, 2014

Daily podcast – November 25, 2014

25th November 2014

By: Sane Dhlamini
Creamer Media Senior Contributing Editor and Researcher

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November 25, 2014.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

The fourth renewables bid announcement has been postponed.

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Tunisia’s presidential vote heads into a close run-off.

And, the African National Congress is not in favour of privatising the country's power system.

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The announcement of the preferred bidders arising from the fourth bid window of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme has been delayed.

The delay comes after financial close for the 17 third bid window preferred projects was shifted out, owing primarily to grid connection problems.

The projects were initially scheduled to close on July 30, but the Department of Energy subsequently indicated that it would pursue a staggered financial-close protocol, which would possibly begin this year, but continue into 2015.

Engineering News Online has learned that the bidders have been requested to extend the validity of their bids to March.

The staggered closure framework was a departure from the previous two bidding rounds, when all power purchase agreements, direct agreements, implementation agreements and connection agreements were concluded on a single day by all bidders.

 

An official under former hardline Tunisian ruler Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali appears set for a close run-off in presidential polls with a rival who says he represents the 2011 "Arab Spring" uprising that toppled him.

Preliminary results in the country's first presidential ballot since the uprising are expected soon, but the parties of two frontrunners said that initial tallies showed they would face off in next month's second round.

The presidential poll is a step in Tunisia's sometimes-rocky transition since it’s uprising prompted the overthrow of long-ruling leaders in Yemen, Libya, Egypt and Syria. Tunisia's progress and political compromise between rival Islamist and secular rivals contrasts with warring factions in Libya and the army overthrow of an elected Islamist president in Egypt.

One frontrunner, Beji Caid Essebsi, who was parliament chief under Ben Ali, has cast himself as a veteran technocrat. He will face off with Moncef Marzouki, the current president who has warned against return of "one-party era" figures like Essebsi.

The run-off will likely be tough with the both candidates hunting for backing from the liberal, left-wing and Islamist parties that emerged after the end of Ben Ali's one-party rule in one of the Arab world's most secular nations.

Essebsi and other former Ben Ali officials say they are not tainted by the abuses of the past administration.

 

The African National Congress is not in favour of privatising the country's power system, despite problems with parastatal Eskom, general secretary Gwede Mantashe said on Monday.

"Electricity remains a public good and therefore, if you totally privatise it, it will have problems," Mantashe told reporters at the ANC's headquarters at Luthuli House, in Johannesburg. He said privatisation of electricity supply was not a panacea.

Eskom resorted to rolling blackouts at the weekend and declared a power emergency with large industrial customers on Sunday. It has said the country's power supply is likely to remain "constrained for the foreseeable future".

Mantashe said the ANC acknowledged there were problems at a number of state-owned companies, which the ANC was concerned about.

He said the ANC must pay attention to such problems and try to address them.


Also making headlines:

A second bid to broker a peace deal for parliament failed at a meeting between Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and opposition parties on Monday.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that international efforts to fight Ebola are helping to slow the rate of new infections in some areas but increased infections in others and fears of further contagion in Mali indicate much work is still to be done.

And, the Democratic Alliance has called for the suspension of Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson.


Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter [@PolityZA].

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.

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