Court papers filed in nuclear challenge

Cape Town - The government has finally filed responding papers to oppose an application by the SA Faith Communities Environmental Initiative (Safcei) and Earthlife Africa Johannesburg to have the proposed procurement of nuclear energy declared unconstitutional.

READ ALSO: SA's nuclear expansion to go ahead

Liz McDaid, an energy and climate adviser to Safcei, said they received the papers on Monday after the Department of Energy failed to meet the deadlines on several occasions before.

McDaid said they were waiting for their lawyers to give input on what the next step would be.

McDaid said the government had initially failed to respond by May 13 and had asked for an extension until May 20. Their lawyers had then been instructed to issue a rule 30A notice, which gave the government until May 31 to respond.

She said their attorneys had been advised last week that the answering affidavit had been drafted and was being reviewed by the Office of the Presidency and that the State Attorney had hoped to be in a position to file it this week, which they have done.

Earthlife Africa Johannesburg and Safcei went to court over the matter last year to stop what they believe is a flawed and illegal non-transparent nuclear procurement process.

McDaid said the government earlier announced that an agreement with Russia was a done deal, but later backtracked after a public outcry.

READ ALSO: Why nuclear will remain part of SA's energy mix

She said that now, according to President Jacob Zuma, South Africa would build nuclear reactors “on a scale and pace that our country can afford”.

Zuma said in his State of the Nation address that South Africa’s nuclear build programme would roll out at a pace the country can afford, and that the plan was to introduce 9 600MW of nuclear energy in the next decade.

Earlier this month, Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said the nuclear energy expansion programme was a central feature of the country’s future energy mix, given the need to provide base load electricity and also to meet the significant greenhouse gas emissions reduction target that had been set.

She has also said the process would be “above board and free of any potential for corruption”.

But there has been concern over the cost, which has been estimated at more than R1 trillion, although it is a figure dismissed by Joemat-Pettersson last year, who said she didn’t know where that figure came from.

CAPE ARGUS