Ramokgopa withdraws gazetted section 34 for procurement of nuclear energy to allow public participation

Electricity and energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa announced the withdrawal of the gazetted section 34 process that made way for the procurement of nuclear energy.

“I'm withdrawing the gazette to allow public participation to happen,” said Ramokgopa.

The programme forms part of the country’s future energy mix which the government has been working on under the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan. According to the plan, 2,500MW of generation capacity will be sourced from nuclear energy.

Outlining the programme on Friday, Ramokgopa said they need to subject the process to public participation for transparency.

Ramokgopa said the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) failed to conduct comprehensive consultations on the rollout and modalities of the energy programme, leading to legal challenges.

“The parties are saying when the department came back with a report on how they are going to meet the suspensive conditions, instead of Nersa sitting on its own and applying its mind and giving the final concurrence, they are arguing Nersa had an obligation to subject the report of suspensive condition to another process of public participation.

“I said to the team, we carry the responsibility of ensuring the process we are undertaking is subjected to the highest levels of public scrutiny, including our response in relation to the suspensive conditions,” he said.

Ramokgopa said it is proper for the ministry to extend an opportunity to parties to evaluate, examine, critique and respond to the report on how the ministry will meet the suspensive conditions.

“I agree with the applicants that Nersa should have subjected the process to public participations. The last thing we want is to do a major build on the back of suspicion that the department and government are hiding something from the public.

“We are going to democratise the process. We are going to make it transparent. There is nothing to hide. Based on that, I directed that it is important we accede to the request for additional public participation.”

The withdrawal of the gazette is to ensure the process is clean and transparent, he said. 

“Of course there's a penalty you pay as a result of the decision to delay the process, but we are happy to delay so we allow for every party in the country that wants to add a voice in how we are going to procure the process to make a submission.

“It will add another three to six months to the process. We are happy to do that to protect the integrity of the process so there's general public confidence in the work we're doing.”

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