CEO Voice: July 2020

CEO Voice: July 2020

Dear Members,
As we move closer to the next round of renewable energy procurement, SAWEA is taking steps to strengthen our stakeholder relations. Part of our advocacy campaign strategy is direct engagements, particularly with government, with the view of strengthening relationships and partnerships.
As reported in the most recent Member Update, the SAWEA Board, met with the new Head of the IPPO, Mr. Bernard Magoro, as a key stakeholder of the IPPO and to discuss imminent issues and map out a longer-term engagement plan between SAWEA and the IPPO.
In addition to this, we supported the RE industry inaugural meeting with the Minister of Mineral Resources & Energy, an engagement that was arranged by EE Business Intelligence. This was an opportunity for the industry to engage openly and directly with the Minister, which was a big step in strengthening our government relations as a sector. The purpose was to establish a forum where our sector can have a platform to engage the DMRE on a regular basis. This foundational engagement, was an important step towards our sector being able to constructively work alongside the DMRE to reduce obstacles to the roll-out of addition RE and help clean, green energy play an essential role in the government’s economic stimulus package, designed to accelerate economic recovery. The next steps will be to finalise the Ministerial Engagement Forum, which is to include key RE stakeholders, with the intention of meeting on a quarterly basis.
In parallel to the Ministerial Engagement process, we have set up a Wind Industry/DMRE forum, in discussion with Mr. Jacob Mbele of the DMRE, to build stronger communication channels and address wind industry-specific issues.  It is envisioned that quarterly engagements will enable us to address standing agenda items.
Kind regards,
Ntombifuthi Ntuli
CEO (SAWEA)