Better than van der Bijl Dreamed: Escom, 1948–75

Abstract

‘In South Africa you can never plan too big.’¹ Over the next quarter of a century van der Bijl was proved right. By 1975 South Africa had the ability to build nuclear weapons, to manufacture Mach 2 fighter-bombers, to manufacture many of its basic heavy engineering requirements, and to manufacture many of its consumer goods. The compound system had been greatly refined and extended, while labour control had been computerised.² Many of South Africa’s labour reserves were formally becoming independent states, but life there was characterised by malnutrition, starvation, and high infantile mortality.³ Low mining wages had enabled South Africa to become a major world supplier not only of gold and diamonds, but also of a vast range of base minerals, notably platinum, chrome, manganese, titanium, vanadium and, most importantly, uranium. South Africa had obtained the crucial technology of uranium enrichment. All of this, and especially the last, was dependent upon plentiful supplies of exceedingly cheap electricity.⁴ In the words of the Escom General Manager in 1976, ‘We’re still ridiculously cheap by world standards — probably half the unit price of most Western countries.’⁵ Escom power was cheap not only because Escom operated ‘without profit’ but also because its power-station compounds ensured cheap labour. Above all, its coal was cheap.