Cabinet made a decision to lift the state of care maintenance of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor.
The MK party has slammed the government of national unity (GNU)’s decision to advance the modular nuclear reactor programme, saying the idea was first championed by its leader and former president Jacob Zuma as early as 2010.
Minister of Energy and Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, during a media briefing on Sunday, announced the Cabinet’s decision to lift the state of care maintenance of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor.
Nuclear energy
Ramokgopa said the decision will place South Africa back in its “rightful place” at the forefront of nuclear technology.
“South Africa is going back to its rightful place as a major player on the nuclear fuel cycle, and we are confident that over a period of time, we’ll be a dominant and indispensable player on the nuclear side,” Ramokgopa said.
MK party aggrieved
However, the MK party is aggrieved at the decision, with spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela claiming that the GNU is taking credit for the initiative.
“It is regrettable that, at a time when [former] president Zuma was the sitting president and South Africa had both the resources and the strategic vision to pursue this critical nuclear build, the process was instead subjected to legal and political obstruction.”
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‘Deprived’
Ndhlela claimed that these delays “deprived” South Africans of access to reliable energy, constrained economic and educational opportunities and slowed progress in key developmental sectors.
“It is therefore troubling that a programme once dismissed as unaffordable or unnecessary has now been approved, despite being substantially more expensive today than it would have been in previous years.”
Affordability
Ndhlela said the earlier criticism that the country’s energy needs were shrinking has been proven “wholly inaccurate, as South Africa now faces a severe and rapidly worsening energy shortage that demands urgent and large-scale intervention.”
“The claim that South Africa could not afford a nuclear build is now contradicted by the so-called GNU’s own commitments in the revised Integrated Resource Plan, which was recently approved by Cabinet, that outlines R2.23 trillion in planned energy-sector investment.
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“The MK Party thus expresses our strong disapproval that a visionary and timely initiative proposed by [former] president Zuma during his tenure was impeded through political and legal obstruction, only to be later embraced under far more challenging and costly circumstances,” Ndhlela said.
Nuclear deal
Zuma signed the controversial nuclear deal with Russia after receiving treatment for alleged poisoning in that country eight years ago, when he was president.
The plan was to “create in South Africa a full-scale nuclear cluster of a world leader’s level – from the front-end of nuclear fuel cycle up to engineering and power equipment manufacturing”.
The deal was set aside by the Western Cape High Court in 2017 and declared invalid and unlawful. Non-government organisations Earthlife Africa and the Southern Africa Faith-Communities’ Environmental Institute brought the case before the court.
In the ruling, Judge Lee Bozalek said the agreement had too many tax exemptions for Russia and placed a heavy financial burden on South Africa’s fiscus.
Report
A damning academic report into state capture said Zuma’s top priorities were to ensure that the highly contested nuclear deal is finalised with the Russians – and this would signify “the final consolidation” of his “rent-seeking system”.
The consolidation of a rent-seeking system is seen as the glue that binds constitutional and shadow states.
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