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Lance Greyling, the ID spokesperson for energy, says the cancellation of Coega's Alcan Smelter ‘will save South Africa as much electricity as a city the size of Cape Town uses.

‘South Africa is one of the most energy intensive countries in the world and the ID has consistently expressed serious reservations about this project and the type of energy intensive development path it was locking South Africa into,' Mr Greyling says.

The ID has raised questions around the preferential electricity prices that would be offered to the Smelter since 2006, but then Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin refused to divulge the tariffs on the basis that it was a confidential contractual arrangement formulated under the Developmental Electricity Pricing Programme.

‘The ID has always been opposed to this Programme as it has offered unrealistically cheap electricity to large, energy intensive enterprises like aluminium smelters, to attract them to our shores,' says Greyling.

‘It is this programme that has led to South Africa becoming one of the most energy intensive economies in the world and the 14th biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

‘It is also this programme that has led to Eskom's R9 billion current losses to what are euphemistically termed "embedded derivatives", which do not lead to large-scale job creation because the aluminium ingots are simply exported overseas, where the real value is added,' Greyling says.

‘Essentially we have fostered a development path that is based on exporting solidified electricity in exchange for peanuts and dirty air.

‘The time is long overdue for us to diversify our economy away from a Minerals-Energy Complex. Only then will we be able to harness our scarce energy resources more effectively to create jobs in our manufacturing sector, where we have lost around half a million jobs over the past 15 years,' says Greyling.