The National Treasury has remained silent on the budget for the nuclear build programme despite Eskom calling for interested parties to submit requests for information.
Director-general in the Treasury Lungisa Fuzile said yesterday that it was still too early to talk about nuclear.
No funding has been allocated for the nuclear build programme.
Fuzile said the whole process was still in the early stages and the fiscus was not required to make funds available.
This was besides the R200million allocated last year for the preparatory work for nuclear, he said.
In December, Eskom issued a Request for Information to interested parties.
This sparked a response of
22 companies bidding for the R1trillion nuclear tender.
In his Budget speech in the National Assembly yesterday, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan did not say anything about nuclear.
Even the Budget Review of the National Treasury has not revealed anything on the nuclear build programme.
However, last year in the Budget Gordhan said R200m was allocated to fund the preparatory work for the project.
In his reply during the debate on the State of the Nation address, President Jacob Zuma insisted that South Africa would cover nuclear on a scale and at a pace that was affordable to the country.
Protesters outside Parliament yesterday also called for the government to scrap the nuclear deal.
Russian nuclear agency Rosatom has denied that it has already bagged the nuclear contract with South Africa.
Rosatom’s vice-president for southern Africa, Viktor Polikarpov, said they would bid like any other country, including China, France, Korea and the US.
Last week, Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said 22 companies had submitted their requests for information to Eskom. She said this would be taken to the cabinet for discussion.
Eskom said it had not yet issued a request for proposal on nuclear.
However, the request for information would be able to determine who was able to do what.
The Energy Department also told Parliament last year that the first nuclear power plant would not come in 2022 as earlier
projected.
This deadline had been shifted by 10 years to 2032 because of the work that had to be undertaken, including the preparatory work.
Zuma insisted in the address that nuclear was part of the energy mix programme for the government.
Opposition parties have raised concerns that this was an expensive programme that would bankrupt the government, but a final decision would be made after all processes had been undertaken.