Kubayi is set to consult lawyers on nuclear ruling
ENERGY Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has stopped short of saying she will appeal the nuclear court judgment – but has confirmed to MPs she will get directives from the lawyers today.
Kubayi told Parliament’s portfolio committee on energy yesterday that she has not made a decision on the nuclear project and that she will meet her legal team today to decide on the judgment.
But she made it clear to MPs that the judgment of the Western Cape High Court did not prevent the government from embarking on a nuclear project.
In its judgment the court said the processes that had been followed were flawed.
The minister said this was what needed to be corrected by the government.
But she would not say whether this opened the way for the government to go ahead with the nuclear project after following all the required processes in Parliament.
Civil society groups took the government to the Western Cape High Court to challenge the nuclear project, and last week the court scrapped it.
Kubayi said they will be transparent with the nuclear project, and would not hide anything. She said she did not have a problem with the public participation process as outlined in the court judgment.
She was also willing to discuss with the public all the elements of nuclear power when it was presented in Parliament, she said.
There were things that should have been done better by her department, including following all required processes, said Kubayi.
“As a politician I don’t want to be dragged into lobby groups on nuclear. The PFMA (Public Finance Management Act) is very clear that politicians are not involved in procurement.
“Don’t lobby me on perspectives of people who want to procure. I am not interested,” said Kubayi.
She did not know where the figure of R1 trillion to procure nuclear came from, because no studies had been done to cost the project.
The DA’s Gordon Mackay said there were a lot of questions that needed to be answered. International agreements with Russia, the US, France, Korea and China had not been submitted in Parliament as was required by law.
Jan Esterhuizen of the IFP said SA could not afford nuclear-build as it was expensive.
Kubayi said they would not hide anything. That is why they had requests for information and they would keep the process as clean as possible.