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The South African government unveiled plans on Tuesday to develop additional nuclear power plants to generate more electricity in the face of an energy crisis and frequent blackouts in the continent’s most sophisticated economy.

The decision to invite bids for the stations, which will take at least a decade to complete, was immediately criticised by the main opposition parties, who claimed that Russian state-owned nuclear agency Rosatom was the government’s “preferred partner.”

Talks of Russian nuclear power stations have been swirling since the Zuma years, which begs the question what promises were made to whom? You don’t make a deal, secret or otherwise, with Russia and then backtrack.

The Democratic Alliance pointed out an ‘old’ nuclear deal struck by South Africa with Russia in 2014 for an estimated $76 billion that was cloaked in secrecy and cancelled by a South African court for being illegal and unconstitutional. The party says that the deal “was tainted by allegations of large-scale corruption and was signed by former South African President Jacob Zuma, who is now on trial on separate corruption charges”.

We repeat: Hands were likely shooketh, and you don’t back out of a deal with the Reds.

Plans for the additional nuclear power plants were announced just one day after the government authorised a deal with Russian bank Gazprombank to reactivate a gas-to-liquids oil refinery on South Africa’s south coast that has been idle since 2020. Gazprombank is one of many Russian financial firms sanctioned by the United States – eat it Agoa.

The South African government said that Gazprombank “would share in the risk and rewards of reinstatement of the refinery” once the details of the agreement were finalized, which was expected to be in April. Many other African countries, including Burkina Faso, Mali, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia and Egypt have nuclear power agreements with Russia or have agreements to build nuclear power plants in the future.

Zizamele Mbambo, the deputy director-general of nuclear energy in the South African government’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, said “The tender process for the new power stations would be open and transparent and had been approved by the energy regulator”.

The ANC’s inability to think beyond the next election, and great love for kickbacks, seems to blind them to the fact that nuclear power is an investment that requires commitment of almost a century. Whoever slides into bed with us now is going to be our lover for a long time.

Jirre help ons. 

[source:newsday]