Jacob Maroga, a former CEO of Eskom, says “As Eskom approaches 330 days of no loadshedding, it is worth reflecting that the causes of this crisis were more ideological than technical.” And that the “greatest risk” to South African energy security would be to abandon coal power without an appropriate replacement.

Maroga was writing on X, where he shared a graph showing the incidences of loadshedding since 2014.

The graph showed how loadshedding escalated between 2018 and 2023 before receding sharply.

According to Maroga, “The stats show that about 80% of loadshedding in the entire history at @Eskom_SA happened between 2020 and 2023.”

He said, “South Africa was advised to abandon base-load coal to imitate mainly the German Energy Transition, the EnergieWende.” According to Maroga, “Under EnergieWende, Germany spent trillions dismantling baseload nuclear and coal and attempting to replace them with solar and wind.”

However, “After [more than] 20 years of trying, the German leaders are now admitting that the dismantling of base-load nuclear and coal was a ‘huge strategic mistake’.”

Germany moved away from using coal and nuclear energy to supply its base-load electricity and replaced them with renewable options such as solar and wind. As a consequence, energy prices in Germany spiked, placing immense stress on households and the economy, and prompting the rise of increasingly right-wing politics.

Maroga said that, should South Africa continue to follow the German model, and abandon coal without an “appropriate dispatchable replacement”, it would be the “greatest risk for energy security”.

The Common Sense has in the past made exactly the same arguments, and said, “Both as a moral imperative, and for SA to survive as a free society, its government needs to start burning heaps of coal.”

The Common Sense has made the further argument that, “South Africa doesn’t have an energy cap on economic growth. By using the existing [coal-fired] power stations and grid infrastructure, South Africa could potentially quadruple its economic growth rate over the next decade – without building a single new station or extending the grid. South Africa is not a colony of Brussels and should not be holding back in the best interests of South Africa’s people because of pressure applied by European governments.”

Despite Germany turning back to coal, German foreign policy proxies and influencers continue to drive an ideological agenda seeking to undermine South Africa’s sovereignty and the recovery of its economy. A document from January 2026, which is in The Common Sense’s possession, shows the German-financed Friedrich Naumann Foundation driving a domestic lobby in South Africa to promote, “Rapid decarbonisation of South Africa’s export-oriented industrial base through renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs), wheeling and green hydrogen pilots.” Such lobbies have historically been extremely influential in shaping domestic policy in South Africa and remain a primary threat to the country’s ability to stage an economic and living standards recovery.