DA warns against secrecy about nuke plans

The DA has sounded the alarm over the scant details of the government’s planned multibillion-rand nuclear build programme and on Thursday lodged an application under the Protection of Access to Information Act (PAIA) for a copy of the financial feasibility study. DA energy spokesman Lance Greyling said he had resorted to the PAIA application after numerous requests for information, and for the matter to be debated in Parliament, had been ignored.

Greyling said on Thursday the programme – “which will not cost less than R300 billion, and could even go up to as much as R1 trillion” – would make the cost of the arms deal look comparatively “tiny” and could have dire repercussions for the economy. “This will be the biggest procurement in our country’s history. We have to avoid a situation like we are currently seeing with the e-tolling debacle – where the financing model was not publicly debated at the outset,” Greyling said.

“We need to be sure of the financing agreements before we even issue the tenders for the programme. We also need to ensure that the substantial financial risks from cost overruns or building delays are not foisted on to the SA taxpayer.” Greyling said there was an urgent need for clarity on government thinking on the nuclear programme, how it intended to finance the programme, and whether the programme was feasible and in the country’s best interests before putting it out the tender. He voiced concern that foreign nuclear companies “seem to know more about SA’s nuclear build programme than the public”.

“All the public knows about the programme is that Thyspunt (at Cape St Francis) is the preferred location and that bidding is meant to start this year.” Meanwhile, he said, President Jacob Zuma had recently visited South Korea to attend a nuclear conference and reports suggested Korean firms would be bidding for the lucrative tender. “French nuclear company Areva, which was involved in the notorious SA arms deal, has told Reuters it plans to bid to build nuclear reactors in SA, possibly in partnership with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation.”

Greyling said interest had also been expressed by US nuclear technology group Westinghouse, and the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation had hosted a seminar in Joburg last week to showcase its nuclear prowess “and possibly position itself as a contender for the bid”. Citing an example of how the costs of nuclear programmes could escalate out of control, Greyling said: “The nuclear build programme in Finland is currently five years behind schedule and has almost doubled in price since its original costing was made. “We need to know who is going to be responsible for cost and time overruns, such as those in the case of Finland. We need to know whether we are going to be locking ourselves into an energy future where we might end up with very expensive, stranded assets. Greyling said speculation was rife that the build might cost up to R1 trillion – the current value of the entire national budget.

“There has been no debate in Parliament and no opportunity for the public to scrutinise plans for a nuclear programme. “This is all rather curious, as the Department of Energy has suddenly described the programme as being in the ‘final stages of consideration’. If so, we would expect the environmental impact assessment and the feasibility study to be in the public domain. They aren’t,” Greyling said. Sisa Njikelana, the chairman of Parliament’s energy portfolio committee, said yesterday the committee planned to invite the Energy Department to brief it on the nuclear plans in the next parliamentary term. “We cannot have a knee-jerk approach to the nuclear issue. We have to give it adequate time,” Njikelana said.

Questioning Greyling’s decision to launch the PAIA application, he added: “As far as I am concerned, he would have had an opportunity when we invited the department for a briefing to ask for this information. Asking for this information is a little on the pre-emptive side. When we handle these issues, we do it collectively and exhaustively as a committee.” Mike Kantey, national chairman of the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy, welcomed Greyling’s application. “The government has been successful in obfuscating the true scale of the nuclear power programme,” he said.

Kantey said the Industrial Policy Action Plan, recently produced by the Department of Trade and Industry, stipulated that the actual costs of a nuclear power programme would be R1.3 trillion. “This would be what PJ O’Rourke called a jet stream of zeros,” he warned. “The plan says, in the next sentence, that ‘this will place enormous strain on the balance of payment and without an effective localisation programme, will have severe consequences for the SA economy’.” He said a thorough investigation of the economic rationale for the nuclear power programme was crucial.