A Solar panels business in billion-dollar that feeds politicians’ multinationals, subsidiaries, banks and some climate organizations and pollical parts leaving behind millions of people with no electricity , land and meanwhile the prices still rocking higher.
By Estacio Valoi
In the last two decades, multiple discoveries of gas deposits off the coast of Mozambique have turned the country into one of the most desired sites of extraction for major gas producers. In the Mozambique Basin, across the provinces of Sofala and Inhambane, it is estimated that Mozambique may have up to 100 trillion cubic feet of reserves, with the potential to make the country one of the world’s largest exporters of gas.
The industry has expressed hopes that Mozambique may form part of the world’s top five exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by the end of this decade.
Electricidade de Mozambique (EDM), in partnership with Africa50, will develop new renewable energy projects. The MoU signing ceremony was attended by Tony Blair, the President of the African Development Bank, the Executive Vice-President of the Rockefeller Foundation and members of the Mozambican government, among other guests. Eskom in South Africa
Greenhouse gas emissions are causing a global climate crisis of unprecedented proportions. Record temperatures and extreme weather events, including heavy flooding and severe droughts, are becoming regular occurrences that increasingly exact a heavy toll on ecosystems, infrastructure and livelihoods in Mozambique and beyond.
The region’s heavy reliance on dirty coal power also imposes a high health cost by causing water, air and soil pollution that regularly exceeds safety standards. To meet climate change commitments, it needs to shut down all its coal power stations and replace them with renewable energy sources, says organizations.
At COP recently , five of the world’s largest economies – the US, UK, Germany, France and EU – pledged an initial $8.5billion finance package over three to five years, a blend of loans and a small amount of granting funding, to help South Africa meet its green energy commitments.
The initiative has been named the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). This is a small proportion of the funds needed for South Africa to decarbonise. A recent study calculated it will cost the country about $250 billion in the next three decades.
Nevertheless, JETP is likely to spur larger investments from Europe and the US and is seen as a litmus test for other developing countries heavily dependent on coal.
South Africa’s draft investment plan, which will identify fundable projects, was scheduled to be finalised before the next round of climate talks in November 2024. The document is expected to contain details on how coal mines will be rehabilitated and repurposed, how vulnerable workers and communities will be protected, and how green jobs will be created.
“Gas extraction has taken place in Mozambique, led by energy and chemical company Sasol, since 2006. Around 2010, major gas deposits were found off the coast of Cabo Delgado; since then, billions of dollars in investments have flowed towards developing offshore extraction projects and their required onshore infrastructure.
“Also, in 2006, the South African-based company Sasol began extracting gas onshore in Inhambane province, through the Pande and Temane projects. Sasol has been accused of ‘transfer pricing’ throughout this project, inflating costs and rerouting sales across borders to avoid paying fair taxes on its extraction in Mozambique.”
However, the impact of Eskom switching to renewable energy supply to Mozal smelter outside Maputo, a joint venture between South Africa and Mozambique. JETP investment plans with renewable energy companies, in particular their loan conditions, projections and expected local impacts
But during an interview with this reporter. Notlembu Tsuma from south Africa Wild Cost Org Amadiba Press Committee confirmed my finding that most of the project does not exert a positive impact on the local communities. Rather, it mostly benefits elites, including politicians, multinational, consultants, and lobbyists.
For those communities the cost of electricity is still high and with not only social, economic but also environmental implication, due the thousands of hectares also occupied by these projects
Amadiba Press Committee is a civil society organization with a lodge that is owned by the people where everything is local and environmentally-friendly Since its construction in 1998, it has been using solar power and doing the most in terms of alternative energy.
In South Africa, Mozambique the transition to the alternative energy is still a long way to go but already being done in good/bad, mainly with fossil fuel, economic export gains. Perhaps “addicted with fossil fuel’ as Tsume says.
Tsume says there is alternative in coal and right now local communities utilise less energy, and communities where the minerals have been digging up are vulnerable affected by climate change and global warming.
“Our governments are not even bringing alternatives to our communities and alternative energy must be coming from within the communities so it can work well. There are so much called green energy where is affecting our communities, are being displaced in the name of alternative energy.”
A paradox. Billions for the alternative funds from the same multinational exploring fossil fuel
“A double-edged sword”, is how this paradox is explained, “something that leaves communities frustrated according to Tsume’, in addition to the fact that minerals are extracted from the African continent that are exported to other destinations outside the continent So, what exactly are we doing because we are contradicting ourselves,” Tsume adds.
If we are we are busy extracting for Europe but Europe put money for alternative energy, what are we doing? Why they cannot use alternative energy if it works for us?
In Mozambique several solar panels were installed in by the Mozambican Electricity Company (EDM), Government its company in partnership with some foreign companies, NGO’s working in the alternative energy area, some producing panels, some advocating, some supplying material other lobbying or consultants.
While millions of Mozambicans continue to have no access to energy produced in Mozambican dams, even with the photovoltaic alternative, it remains more expensive.
Example we looked at Residents of Metoro district in Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique view the photovoltaic plant inaugurated in April 2023 by Mozambican President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi with some scepticism because they say they do not experience direct benefits or a reduction in energy costs.
Critics say this investment does not benefit Mozambicans but makes them “tighten their belts more” because it increases the public debt, considering that $40-million was a loan granted by the French Development Agency and the rest was the contribution of the Mozambican government. However, the plant will revert to EDM in 25 years’ time.
“I am paying the same rate that I was paying before this plant, but our uncles and brothers were forced to leave their farms in exchange for ‘peanuts’ to give space for the construction of the plant,” said a trade operator.
Although they are 60 kilometers from the astronomical Cahora Bassa Dam in the province of Tete, the communities only see towers, electricity cables passing through their villages to supply countries in the region, such as South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, etc. Countless promises in Tete Province where we have been investigating – in the villages of Cataxa, Chococoma, Chamimba, Chamimba, Nhamatua in Cassoca – confirm this sobering reality.
Still in the Chamimba 2 area we find businessman, Steven Azevedo Fernando. At the top of the hill, he has his house, two mills and a small generator. There is also gold there. In Xirimba there were promises to build a high voltage station. ‘Solar panels here?” asks Silva Sadiel Domingos, a local resident, who questions the reasons for opting for solar energy when the Cahora Bassa Dam exists.
‘It doesn’t make sense,” says Silva.
it is no different from the Temane gas power plant in Inhambane province south of Mozambique which is also pumped through pipelines to South Africa while millions of people in Mozambique continue to have no access to gas!
Human rights & due diligence are the principal steps that companies are required to take. But these laws often serve the interests of multinationals.
As the Senior leader adviser at European centre for constitution and human rights, Leo Bailey, observes: “In Europe, and specifically in France and Germany, there are laws that legally oblige companies that have been headquarters in these countries. But in reality, it is too difficult to actually apply these laws.”
This investigation was funded by the Global Green Grants Fund (GGF)
