[en] Energy and electricity policy, planning and regulation in South Africa has been slow and bureaucratic, lacking visionary leadership, and marred by uncertainty. Policy positions and actions taken have tended to be reactive, and driven more by crisis management than by forward-looking leadership. In 1998, the Government White Paper on Energy Policy detailed a policy of restructuring and liberalization of the electricity supply industry (Ei). However, it became clear that the political and executive leadership in national, provincial, and local government, and the various affected ministries, were not of a common mind on the matter, and the ESI incumbents (national electricity utility Eskom, and municipalities) had little appetite to restructure themselves. To date, not one of the above stated policy objectives in respect of the restructuring of the ESI has been met, even though the 1998 policy document remains in place to this day. This policy uncertainty, together with a rapid turnover of ministerial leadership at the Department of Energy, has resulted in integrated planning within the energy and electricity supply sectors being intermittent, uncoordinated, and lacking coherence, at best. The planning that has taken place has been done in the absence of a published national Integrated Energy Plan (IEP). Section 6(1) of the National Energy Act, Act 34, 2008 requires that an IEP be developed, reviewed, and published annually by the Minister of Energy. However, to this day, a final IEP has never been published since 2008 when the Act was first promulgated. Following the publishing of an integrated resource plan (IRP) for electricity, IRP 2010-2030 in 2011, there was a seven-year delay before this was finally updated and replaced with a revised IRP 2019 covering the next decade to 2030. The coal mining industry itself produced the so-called 'National Coal Strategy for South Africa' in 2018, to determine what needs to be done in the face of negative public opinion around the use of coal in power generation and industrial processes. The official commitment to a nuclear power new-build program has fluctuated significantly over the past 15 years. While no new nuclear power is shown in IRP 2019 for the years to 2030, it is worth noting the decision in the IRP to 'commence preparations for a nuclear build program to the extent of 2500 MW at a pace and scale that the country can afford because it is a no-regret option in the long term'. However, it should not be assumed from this statement in the IRP that a nuclear new-build in South Africa will actually take place. A draft Gas Utilisation Master Plan (GUMP) was released by government in May 2016 for public comment. However, the final version of GUMP never made it into the public domain. Planning for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and shale gas, therefore remains uncoordinated and haphazard. By far the biggest portion of the new-build in IRP 2019 for the years to 2030 comprises wind and solar PV, backed up with flexible generation in the form of gas-to-power and battery energy storage. This reflects the fact that this is indeed the preferred option that delivers reliable, dispatchable electricity at least cost, with least water use and lowest emissions, while creating the most jobs and meeting South Africa's climate change commitments. It is becoming apparent that centrally planned procurement of generation capacity of all technologies by the DMRE and its Independent Power Producer (IPP) Office will not be able to meet the immediate needs for increased generation capacity to avert the threat of rolling power cuts or load shedding in South Africa in the next two to three years. However, to make the above possible and to facilitate an immediate uptake of distributed generation at scale for own use, as well as to facilitate a diversified and competitive power generation sector, there is an urgent need for policy, legal and regulatory reform and restructuring of the electricity supply industry (ESI). South Africa has no crude oil reserves, and liquid fuels are produced by refining imported crude oil, and the local production of synthetic liquid fuels from coal and gas. There are six aging refineries, which are supplemented by significant imports of cleaner liquid fuels. Declining local refining capacity, planned and unplanned outages at South Africa's aging refineries, together with the long timelines to purchase, transport, off-load and distribute imported fuel stock, together with limited storage capacity, is leading to intermittent petrol and diesel fuel shortages