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The DA condemns the latest move by Zuma and his captured cronies on the Eskom board to forge ahead with a nuclear programme that runs in the face of draft national energy policy currently making its way through the public consultation process.

Proposed energy policy contained in the integrated resource plan 2016 clearly indicates that nuclear procurement can be postponed until the mid 2020’s and the actual build until 2037. This plan, modelled and drafted by the Department of Energy, stands in sharp contrast to the Section 34 Ministerial determination gazetted yesterday by Minister of Energy, Tina Joemat Pettersson, effectively handing Eskom the permission to commence with the nuclear procurement process by the end of 2016.

The issuance of the Ministerial declaration not only makes a farce of the current public consultation process with regard to the IRP and Integrated Energy Plan (the legislative framework for the nuclear new build programme) it also proceeds public hearings on the desirability of nuclear promised by Portfolio Committee of Energy Chairman, Fikile Majola. The State is therefore wilfully ignoring public participation in the nuclear new build programme despite constitutional and legislative requirements to do so.

As the State continues to pursue this ill-fated nuclear deal additional legal bases are being added for a serious legal show down on the legality and rationality of nuclear procurement. The DA will continue to explore all legal avenues available to it in order to ensure this increasingly illegal act of state is blocked.

Issued by DA