Just Energy Transition Plan (JETP) @KASIBCNEWS

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has noted the decision by US President Donald Trump to revoke international climate finance, including funds allocated to South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Plan (JETP).

This is a blatant act of economic sabotage, proving once again that the United States uses financial aid as a tool to impose its will on sovereign nations. As the EFF, we have always stated that South Africa has been a willing experimental tool for transitions to alternative methods of energy generation, while being given incentives and exorbitant loans to abandon coal as our basesupply for energy generation. 

The US-funding has always been designed to encourage South Africa to abandon coal, and has trapped us in loan agreements for this purpose, and now this withdrawal of financing is yet another means to exhibit strength by the US in response to South Africa’s principled stance against Apartheid Israel.

It is no coincidence that this decision was announced just minutes after a parliamentary debate, initiated by the EFF, on the United States' decision to halt aid to South Africa. 

The timing of Trump’s move is a clear act of retaliation, exposing the deep-seated arrogance of Western imperialists who seek to punish nations that refuse to bow to their dictates. 

Trump’s actions confirm what the EFF has always maintained: foreign aid is a weapon of neocolonial control, designed to keep African nations dependent, vulnerable, and submissive to Western interests. 

The United States, under Trump’s racist and imperialist administration, has made it clear that it does not support genuine development but rather seeks to cripple South Africa’s progress towards energy sovereignty. 

We must ask: Why should South Africa’s ability to transition to renewable energy depend on the financial whims of a foreign power? The very fact that Trump can revoke such funding at will proves that our government has failed to establish true self-reliance in energy production. 

The ANC-led administration’s dependence on Western climate finance has now backfired, further exposing the dangers of outsourcing our developmental agenda to imperialist forces. 

The EFF maintains that South Africa’s energy transition must not be privatized or reliant on foreign donors. A Just Energy Transition must be fully state-led, ensuring that Eskom remains publicly owned and is capacitated to drive the shift to renewable energy. South Africa must immediately invest in alternative energy sources, utilizing its vast natural resources to develop independent, sovereign energy production. 

Workers and communities reliant on coal and fossil fuel industries must be protected, with guaranteed economic alternatives that do not leave them in poverty. Above all, South Africa must reject all forms of economic blackmail by Western powers and take decisive steps to resist US interference in our domestic affairs. 

South Africa must break free from Western control and take full charge of its energy future. The time for economic self-sufficiency is now.