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Speaker 1: Let's walk to talk seven O two seven or two. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: Clement is not here. My name is Taboolcha're excited to

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Speaker 1: be with you all the way to twelve. We have

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Speaker 1: eleven minutes to go if I needed to be precise.

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Speaker 1: Come into life from the Sentence Convention Center on the

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Speaker 1: occasion of the South Africa Investment Conference. The tagline is

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Speaker 1: invest Partner and Prospine. We've been speaking to a number

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Speaker 1: of their partners who are also fighting hard for South

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Speaker 1: Africa to prosper as well. And as I've been pulling

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Speaker 1: the guests to come through, We've managed to get hold

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Speaker 1: of Sitati Polupombo, who's a chief commercial officer at a

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Speaker 1: company called Moriro Molilo. Molilo is a leading South African

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Speaker 1: renewable energy company and it specializes in wind, also in

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Speaker 1: solar and the Petri storage project. But sitatisia to tell

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Speaker 1: us more about it. Good morning, Welcome Sitata. I hope

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Speaker 1: you're good.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Yes, I'm good. Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: Very interesting space of power to jump into. Alternative power source.

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Speaker 1: How is that going? Because it appears as if many

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Speaker 1: people want to occupy that space all facility.

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Speaker 2: It's going very well. I think there's a number of

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Speaker 2: things that are contributing to the success of the renewable

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Speaker 2: energy deployment in South Africa. One is, of course, we

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Speaker 2: are riding on the legacy and the success of the

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Speaker 2: government procurement program ran by the Independent Power Procurement Office,

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Speaker 2: and that spent ten years in the making, and so

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Speaker 2: we've seen a large maturity in the renewal energy space

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Speaker 2: in South Africa as a result of that. And then

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Speaker 2: a few years ago we've also seen a deregulation supporting

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Speaker 2: private sector procurement of renewble energy projects at a utility scale.

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Speaker 2: So I think that that regulatory certainty has supported deployment

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Speaker 2: of renewable energy. And then of course there's maturity in

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Speaker 2: terms of the financing from commercial banks in South Africa as.

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Speaker 1: Well, waking up to this reality that investment is necessary

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Speaker 1: in the space.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, exactly exactly. And then I think it's

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Speaker 2: also supported by the demand for energy in South Africa.

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Speaker 2: Of course, in order for us to build a sustainable economy,

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Speaker 2: you need to promote energy security, and the urgency was

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Speaker 2: you know, emphasized with the load shedding season that we

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Speaker 2: went through, you know, so I think, yes, it's a

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Speaker 2: very positive momentum. You would have heard the Minister of

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Speaker 2: Electricity and Energy towards the end of last year making

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Speaker 2: declarations around the IOP twenty twenty five and the energy

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Speaker 2: mix over the next five to ten years. So lots

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Speaker 2: of exciting stuff that are pointing towards positive momentum.

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Speaker 1: What are you guys doing here at this investment conference?

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Speaker 1: And do intend pledging? Do intend also getting some investors

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Speaker 1: looking your ways?

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Speaker 2: Yes, certainly we are. I'm proud to say that we're

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Speaker 2: pledging close to fifteen billion in renewable energy assets. Yes, incredible,

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Speaker 2: so from solar TV projects and as well as a

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Speaker 2: battery energy storage system. So that's that's really exciting for us.

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Speaker 2: And we will be pledging that. I mean it's imminent,

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Speaker 2: it's by the end of this month.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, are we not going to wait to see

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Speaker 1: again in the next con and ask you all exactly

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Speaker 1: and I don't.

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Speaker 2: Know when we talk again next year, we'll be in

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Speaker 2: constructions good good, yeah, and creating jobs man.

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Speaker 1: In the and it's about it, I mean part of it. President.

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Speaker 1: The President was mentioning that about two hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: thousand jobs ought to be created in the next few

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Speaker 1: months or so from all these investments. And is it

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Speaker 1: value for for for money, value for investment.

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Speaker 2: It is value for money. I think it's shared value.

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Speaker 2: One we are deployed joying more cost effective electricity for

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Speaker 2: the country. It's shared value for even just a normal

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Speaker 2: energy consumer, residential energy consumer, above and beyond private sector consumers.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: I think it's shared value for the communities where we

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Speaker 2: build these projects because we employ locally. That's what makes

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Speaker 2: business sense, yes, right, yes, And then I think there

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Speaker 2: is also a lot of shared value for us as

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Speaker 2: investors and shareholders as well. You know, we've got great

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Speaker 2: resource in South Africa. You would have seen the minister

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Speaker 2: in his earlier address saying that we've got some of

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Speaker 2: the best resource in the world, you know. And these

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Speaker 2: projects can be executed relatively quickly. Construction is between eighteen

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Speaker 2: and twenty four months. So once you deploy very quick

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Speaker 2: to the end of construction and then you start generating

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Speaker 2: revenues and profits.

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Speaker 1: Competition in this space, especially coming from outside the country,

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Speaker 1: how is that. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean, look, I think some of the first companies

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Speaker 2: to participate in the government in the public procurement program

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Speaker 2: were multinationals, which makes sense because renewable energy. You know,

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Speaker 2: maturity started in European markets, American markets and so on

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Speaker 2: and so forth, and we still have some international or

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Speaker 2: multinational players in the South African space. What we have seen, though,

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Speaker 2: and I'm very too, I'm very happy to report, is

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Speaker 2: we've seen some local players. I mean, the Mlilo story

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Speaker 2: is a heritage story of a South African business founded

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Speaker 2: by two local entrepreneurs that ten twelve years later managed

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Speaker 2: to attract an international shareholder to invest in the business.

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Speaker 2: And now the platform has led to us being the

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Speaker 2: number one best you know ipp in the country.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic share a bit about out the optimism that can

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Speaker 1: be created and the real value that can be derived

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Speaker 1: from gatherings such as this, rightfully or wrongfully. So there

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Speaker 1: would be some skepticism from especially people who are hearing

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Speaker 1: this from our find saying it's it's yet another talk

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Speaker 1: shop we will hear about these figures. Well, is there

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Speaker 1: value that comes from this gathering, Interacting like this with

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Speaker 1: fellow business international, local colleagues and partners can be derived

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Speaker 1: from these gatherings.

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Speaker 2: I think it can. I think it really really can.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you have the president interacting directly with decision

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Speaker 2: makers in the private sector space. I think also you're

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Speaker 2: seeing a lot of diversity in terms of the number

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Speaker 2: of industries that are pledging. If you compare the sector

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Speaker 2: the sector diversity from four even five years ago, it

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Speaker 2: was mostly mining, mining houses in it and large scale energy,

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Speaker 2: you know, listed entities, but we're seeing more and more

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Speaker 2: unlisted private second tier organizations that that that that are

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Speaker 2: also creating jobs, you know. And I think also the

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Speaker 2: pledges that are made here are not four or five

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Speaker 2: ten years away. It's it's really you are pledging the

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Speaker 2: investment you're going to make in this calendar year. So

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Speaker 2: every single year when we show up here and we're

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Speaker 2: saying it's it's it's one point two trillion or whatever

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Speaker 2: the case may be, it's one point two trillion going

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Speaker 2: into the economy in this calendar year. So I think

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Speaker 2: it's I think it's a it's it's it's a great

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Speaker 2: signal to the South African market, but it's also a

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Speaker 2: great signal to international investors as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we'll be watching very carefully. We've run

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Speaker 1: out of time, but we'll be watching a little very carefully,

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Speaker 1: and well done on that huge pledge of one point

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Speaker 1: five billion rangs fifteen, not one point five. No, I'm

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Speaker 1: just taking ten percent from myself. They're putting it into

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Speaker 1: the back pocket. Fifteen billion rens. Fifteen billion rens. All

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Speaker 1: the best to you and thanks for the confidence in

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Speaker 1: the country.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. See. Taddy Bolipombo is Chief Commercial Officer at Moriro.

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Speaker 1: Three minutes to twelve