Karima Brown
DAVOS: South Africa’s worsening energy crisis will form the centrepiece of President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address next month, as the government scrambles to respond to unhappiness over ongoing power outages and rising electricity prices.
Zuma is likely to announce that his government is pushing ahead with a controversial nuclear energy programme that could cost the state upwards of R1 trillion. Details would be fleshed out when he speaks to a joint sitting of Parliament early next month, he told Independent Media yesterday.
Zuma was speaking on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where he is leading a delegation of South African ministers, heads of parastatals and businessmen.
He said details of the state’s financial backing for its nuclear power play would be in Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene’s budget speech later next month.
“At the right moment, very soon, we are going to be articulating where we are. The fact of the matter is that we have signed agreements,” he said, in reference to a series of nuclear co-operation memoranda signed with nuclear powers such as Russia, China and France.
“The finance minister, once he speaks, he must be able to say ‘here is the money for the programmes the president talked about’, and that will go to the budgeting departments.”
Reports last year that South Africa had signed a potential deal that could see Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom build reactors in the country drew criticism, with detractors arguing that the
move would put massive financial strain on the country and potentially hike power prices. This followed a joint statement between Rosatom, the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation and South Africa hailing a strategic partnership in nuclear energy on the margins of the 58th session of the general conference of International Atomic Agency last September in Vienna.
The ANC’s lekgotla would put final touches to the plans, which in turn would feed into the government lekgotla, Zuma said. The plans would then filter into his annual parliamentary address. Sona is a function of the lekgotlas.”
Areva, EDF, Toshiba’s Westinghouse Electric, China Guangdong Nuclear Power, Rosatom and Korea Electric Power have expressed interest in building South Africa’s new nuclear plants.
Zuma confirmed that the government was also considering offers from Japan and South Korea. Critics often point to Russia’s track record on safety at its nuclear plants as a reason not to choose that country’s technology and expertise.
However, a senior lecturer at the School of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at North West University, Dawid Serfontein, disagreed.
Serfontein said Russia was at the forefront of nuclear technology and should be considered if South Africa wanted to acquire reactors. He noted that Russia had also promised to lend South Africa the money to fund its nuclear programme, which would be a boost to any Russian bid, and could potentially help South Africa shoulder the massive, long-term financial burden
But not everyone agrees about the wisdom of the state’s big nuclear bet.
Earthlife Africa project co-ordinator Christian Taylor said that in the long term, the cost of nuclear electricity produced under the programme would be too expensive for ordinary people to afford.
He added that South Africa was giving itself over to long-term debt with Russia.