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South Africa’s new Energy Minister rushes into nuclear power development with indecent haste

Mahlobo rushes nuclear deal, News 24, Setumo Stone, 5 Nov 17, As Energy Minister David Mahlobo forces his nuclear power plans into action, officials at his department are working weekends to finalise the country’s reviewed integrated energy resource plan – four months ahead of schedule.

The plan to determine the energy mix the country needs was expected to be finalised in February next year, but will now be finished in the next two weeks.

“We would have been talking February, but now we are talking November 14,” said an insider, vouching for the level of hard work the minister was putting into his job.

This would enable Mahlobo to make projections of the country’s future energy demands based on “empirical evidence”.

Last week, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba told City Press that nuclear energy was neither affordable for the sluggish economy, nor immediately necessary.  Mahlobo, who has been in his new job for just more than two weeks after three years as state security minister, is now on a collision course with Gigaba and Treasury.

The nuclear energy plan is expected to cost South Africa about R1 trillion, an amount that economists and politicians from across the spectrum – including the ANC – say the country’s struggling economy cannot afford. ……..

 The countries with the leading technology are France, Russia, the US, South Korea and China. Companies from these countries as well as their governments have been aggressively wooing South Africa’s decision-makers and working to sway public opinion their way. But many believe that President Jacob Zuma’s cosy relationship with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, as well as Mahlobo’s own close ties to the Kremlin and its security establishment, has already tilted the scales in that country’s favour.

When Mahlobo’s predecessor Mmamoloko Kubayi was moved out of the department in the Cabinet reshuffle last month, there was widespread speculation that it was because she was not moving with haste on the nuclear programme……….

Mahlobo said he had no desire to see the country borrow money to fund the nuclear project……..https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/mahlobo-rushes-nuclear-deal-20171105-2

November 6, 2017 - Posted by | politics, South Africa

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