Call for checks to avert corruption

THE plan to build nuclear generators that can produce 9.6GW of power is likely to cost about R855-billion — roughly 20 times more than the arms deal. With arms deal subcontracts ridden with corruption, some are wondering aloud what will happen when the temptation is many times larger in a massive nuclear build.

Corruption Watch’s David Lewis is among them. “It seems to us the most effective way [to reduce corruption] would be to make the whole bidding and tendering process as open as possible,” he says. “There has to be some strong engagement between the bidding parties and the awarding parties. Even if it doesn’t start off as a corrupt relationship, they get to know each other well.”

He says independent civilian observers would keep temptation in check.

Lewis also argues that the present system of reviewing corrupt practices long after they occurred is faulty. “By the time you’ve gone through the court process and the appeal process you find that half the nuclear turbine is built.”

He points to the Constitutional Court’s ruling in the irregular awarding of a tender to administer social-welfare payments. The court ordered that the tender be re-issued.

Part of the judgment by Justice J Froneman reads: “A new and independent bid evaluation committee must be appointed to evaluate and adjudicate the new tender process.”

Lewis says: “That’s now the law around tenders.”

Unisa international politics lecturer Dr Jo-Ansie van Wyk believes the tender process will not be transparent. “We have enough examples of these deals not happening in the open. This is going in that direction.”

There are worrying signs that the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) itself has behaved with impropriety. Earlier this year, it emerged that it had spent R76 000 on a table at an ANC election fundraiser ahead of the general election.

Necsa CEO Phumzile Tshelane commented: “Necsa does a cost-benefit analysis and says: ‘Can we see the benefit of talking to ministers of trade and industry and energy . . . by paying for the table?’”

So far the nuclear acquisition process has been anything but transparent. There has already been extensive contact — all behind closed doors — between government and potential bidders.

Foreign contractors began courting South Africa in earnest in 2012. In October that year, a French business delegation including nuclear contractors visited the country, and in November a South African nuclear industry delegation visited Russia where it me with Rosatom subsidiaries that build nuclear plants.

In the same month, Necsa and Alstom SA, subsidiary of French power generation and infrastructure group Alstom, signed an agreement.

Early last year, another major step was taken when an international Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review mission visited South Africa and reviewed its readiness for a nuclear build programme.

In November, Rosatom’s director-general, Sergey Kirienko, said: “We are ready to provide the partners with technologies featuring postFukushima safety systems. On the whole, we offer not only to build NPPs in South Africa but also to structure the entire high-technology chain.”

Exactly what has transpired in the behind-closed-doors meetings between government officials and nuclear bidders remains unknown.

By the time actual tendering begins, aspects of the deal may already have been sealed in secret.