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No nuclear payment plans in place yet - dept

Cape Town - The department of energy has not been able to make financial provision for the forthcoming nuclear procurement decisions because it still has to review the nuclear policy and develop a funding mechanism, Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson has told parliament.

Gordon MacKay, a DA MP, referred to her department’s estimates of national expenditure published alongside the current medium-term budget and asked why her department had not made financial provision for the nuclear programme.

She replied: “The department could not make financial provision for the forthcoming nuclear procurement decisions because it still had to review the nuclear policy, develop a funding mechanism and take strategic decisions regarding the nuclear build programme.”

Further details of the deal with Russia have been fleshed out from another question to Joemat-Pettersson from Lance Greyling, another DA MP. He asked how many times she had met with employees of Rosatom, the Russian nuclear power company since January this year.

He also asked how many times the former energy minister, Ben Martins, had met with Rosatom.

Joemat-Pettersson did not say how many times Martins had met Rosatom, as she provided no reply to that element of the question.
However, she said she had met the Rosatom director general to discuss “areas of cooperation between South Africa and Russia”. The meeting had taken place on September 21 this year on the sidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency 58th general conference.

The meeting was held in Vienna. Asked what the cost of the meeting had been, Joemat-Pettersson said: “The cost will be included in the Department of Energy annual report.” It had been borne by her department, she said.

Rosatom reported on September 22 that an intergovernmental agreement on strategic partnership and cooperation in nuclear energy and industry had been signed between the Russian Federation and the Republic of South Africa, represented by Sergey Kirienko, the Rosatom director general and Joemat-Pettersson, representing the South African government. Kirienko also represented the Russian government.

In October the acting energy director general Wolsey Barnard said South Africa was still looking at different options to facilitate nuclear power in the country. Referring to reports on the Russian-South Africa agreement, he emphasised that South Africa was currently busy with “the investigation phase to look at different nuclear technologies” in various countries.

South Africa is looking for up to eight nuclear power plants to provide electricity.
 
 - Fin24


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