Missing Nuclear Deal Documents

On the 19^th of August fin24 reported that the Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson was asked in Parliament next week to account for missing documents regarding South Africa’s nuclear energy program.

Transparency in procedures questioned

According to Democratic Alliance (DA) MP and shadow energy minister Gordon Mackay, who sits on the energy portfolio committee in Parliament, he responded to a claim that government failed to disclose about 10 documents in justifying its decision to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with Russia.

The South African government wants to build eight nuclear reactors with a generation capacity of 9.6 GW energy to improve South Africa’s electricity demand. However, many renewable energy advocates believe that the nuclear program will be too expensive and in the process could possibly downgrade South Africa to junk status.

 

However, Joemat-Pettersson emphasized that there is no “nuclear deal”, and that everything relating to the nuclear program is above board, fair and transparent with regard to the scale, pace and price of the program.

Safcei and ELA mentioned that they noticed that documents were missing while their legal team were reviewing a 700-page responding affidavit from government. Safcei and ELA revealed that the government failed to disclose at least 10 documents to which it refers when justifying its decisions to enter into a nuclear deal with Russia.

The reportedly missing documents include:

1. The proposal to cabinet that the minister signed off for the roll-out of the new nuclear power plants;
2. The Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review by the International Atomic Energy Agency;
3. The terms of reference for the National Nuclear Energy Executive Coordinating Committee;
4. The communication and stakeholder engagement strategy;
5. The phased decision making approach for implementing the nuclear program;
6. The designation of Eskom as the owner and operator of nuclear power plants in South Africa;
7. The 2004 Bilateral International Agreement with the Russian Federation;
8. The May 2013 agreement between Russia and South Africa signed during the Brics summit meeting in Durban;
9. The invitation to attend vendor parade workshops sent to the Republic of Korea, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the French Republic, the People’s Republic of China, Canada and the Kingdom of Japan; and
10. The list of topics each vendor country was requested to address relating to the invitation referred to in the previous point.

On the 4^th of August Safcei and ELA sent a letter requesting the missing documents, “as they are clearly relevant to the case …However, they are still awaiting a response.

 

The confusion as to what degree the nuclear deal discussions have actually progressed creates a concern as to how transparent the process really is as well as whose best interests are being served. Read more about the proposed nuclear deal here.