{"id":92015,"date":"2017-04-28T22:47:40","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T20:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/court-ruling-on-zumas-nuclear-deal-is-a-marker-of-south-africas-political-health-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2017-04-28T22:47:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T20:47:40","slug":"court-ruling-on-zumas-nuclear-deal-is-a-marker-of-south-africas-political-health-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/court-ruling-on-zumas-nuclear-deal-is-a-marker-of-south-africas-political-health-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Court ruling on Zuma’s nuclear deal is a marker of South Africa’s political health | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Court ruling on Zuma’s nuclear deal is a marker of South Africa’s political health<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Celebrations outside the Western Cape High Court after it ruled against the South African government's proposed nuclear deal.<\/span> Nic Bothma\/EPA<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The South African government\u2019s plan to bulldoze through a nuclear energy deal has been dealt what might be a fatal blow by the Cape Town High court which has declared the plan invalid. It found that the government had not followed due process in making the decision to pursue a nuclear power option, as well as in other critical areas. <\/p>\n

The court\u2019s decision has put paid to President Jacob Zuma\u2019s hopes of clinching the nuclear build programme before leaving office in 2019 if he completes his term. <\/p>\n

The case was brought to court by Earthlife Africa and the Southern Africa Faith-Communities\u2019 Environmental Institute. The two NGOs were challenging the way in which the state determined the country\u2019s nuclear power needs. The plan would have seen South Africa purchasing 9,600 megawatts of extra nuclear power. <\/p>\n

The judge, Lee Bozalek, ruled the government\u2019s action unconstitutional and found that five decisions it had taken were illegal. These included the government\u2019s decision to go ahead with the nuclear build and the fact that it had handed over the procurement process to the state utility Eskom. The court also ruled that Eskom\u2019s request for information from nuclear vendors, a step taken to prepare the procurement, which ended on 28 April 2017 was invalid. <\/p>\n

If it still wants to pursue the nuclear deal the government will have to start all over again. To do so legally it would have to open up the process to detailed public scrutiny. The country\u2019s electricity regulator would have to have a series of public hearings before endorsing what would be its highest ever spend on infrastructure. And any international agreements would have to be scrutinised by parliament. <\/p>\n

All this will take time \u2013 something Zuma doesn\u2019t have. And it\u2019s unlikely that his successors will be as eager to champion a new deal as he has been. Meanwhile the facts about the deal will become public. This will undoubtedly demonstrate two of the biggest criticisms of the deal to be true: that the country can\u2019t afford it, and that it\u2019s energy needs have shrunk, making the vast investment redundant. <\/p>\n

The court\u2019s ruling has turned the nuclear procurement issue into one of the key markers of South Africa\u2019s political health. It\u2019s not yet clear whether the South African government will appeal the Western Cape High Court\u2019s decision, or comply with the judgement. A third option is that Zuma simply ignores the courts and continues to pursue the deal. <\/p>\n

Demand and affordability<\/h2>\n

South Africa currently has more than enough electricity to meet its needs. This wasn\u2019t the case about five years ago when widespread outages hit the country. Since then new electricity generation capacity has been added, through the the rapid roll out of renewables, and the opening up of two new giant coal burning plants. Consumption, particularly by industry, has steadily declined due to faltering economic growth and higher electricity prices. Demand has dropped so much that Eskom plans to close five coal burning power stations. <\/p>\n

The argument that the country needs another 9,600 megawatts was identified in documents that produced in 2011. These are now widely acknowledged as being badly out of date. Recent studies by the University of Cape Town\u2019s Energy Research Centre have shown that the country doesn\u2019t need to consider nuclear for another 20 years. <\/p>\n

A number of studies have also shot holes in the government\u2019s argument that the country can afford the proposed nuclear build. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has developed models showing that new nuclear is likely to be much more expensive than coal or renewables. The price ticket for nuclear \u2013 which some estimates put at more than R1 trillion \u2013 doesn\u2019t take into account the costs of operation, fuel, insurance, emergency planning or the regulation or decontamination at the end of the life of the reactors. <\/p>\n

It would also impose a financial burden on the country\u2019s fiscus which it can ill afford particularly now that the economy has been rated at junk status.<\/p>\n

Ulterior motives<\/h2>\n

So why is Zuma still pushing for the deal to go ahead? One source of pressure might be the Russians. South Africa\u2019s former energy minister, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, had been instructed to signed a deal with the Russian utility, Rosatom to build the reactors. South Africa has also already signed nuclear power cooperation agreements with other countries like the US and South Korea, which the court has declared void.<\/p>\n

A more likely reason for Zuma\u2019s zeal is the involvement of the Gupta family with whom he has close ties. The family\u2019s web of interests around the nuclear deal are complex. <\/p>\n

What is known is that the Gupta family controls South Africa\u2019s only dedicated uranium mine. The family has developed close relationships with key individuals at Eskom. In November last year the country\u2019s then Public Protector pointed to overlapping directorships between Gupta-owned companies and Eskom. <\/p>\n

The report also suggested that Brian Molefe, Eskom\u2019s CEO, had a close relationship with the family. These revelations led to his resignation shortly after the report was published.<\/p>\n

Another strand in the complex web is the fact that Zuma\u2019s son Duduzane is a business partner of the Guptas while other relatives are directly employed by them.<\/p>\n

Despite his determination, Zuma has become increasingly isolated in his quest for nuclear procurement. The African National Congress is clearly divided on the issue. This is evident from the fact that Zuma has resorted to reshuffling his cabinet to make way for more compliant ministers without reference to party officials as would be the norm. <\/p>\n

The private sector has also come out against the idea while the list of civil society organisations opposed to nuclear expansion goes well beyond the environmental lobby and includes a broad spectrum of foundations, faith communities, human rights campaigners and defenders of the country\u2019s constitution. <\/p>\n

High stakes<\/h2>\n

The nuclear judgement in Cape Town indicates that South Africa\u2019s legal system has not yet been \u201ccaptured\u201d by private interests. <\/p>\n

The key question is whether Zuma and Eskom will accede to the verdict, or whether they challenge it while continuing to ignore the rule of law. Not only would this subvert the country\u2019s constitution and its democratic form of government, it would also deny the constitutional right to popular participation in energy democracy. <\/p>\n

The stakes are high \u2013 for the country as well as for the president. Will he continue to treat the country\u2019s energy future with impunity? Or will this judgement symbolise the rollback of the democratic dispensation envisaged by the authors of the country\u2019s constitution?<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

David Fig has had a long association with Earthlife Africa, and serves on the steering committee of the African Uranium Alliance. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/small>
\n<\/p>\n

Read more on The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Court ruling on Zuma’s nuclear deal is a marker of South Africa’s political health: Celebrations outside the Western Cape High Court after it ruled against the South African government's proposed nuclear deal. Nic Bothma\/EPA The South African government\u2019s plan to bulldoze through a nuclear energy deal has been dealt what might be a fatal blow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4635,8890,2312,2348,140,8074,7953,4849,6473,3576,3471],"class_list":{"0":"post-92015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africas","8":"tag-conversation","9":"tag-court","10":"tag-deal","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-marker","13":"tag-nuclear","14":"tag-political","15":"tag-ruling","16":"tag-south","17":"tag-zumas","18":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}