After waiting for six years for the Department of Energy to publish its Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity (IRP), interested parties have only been given a few days to react to the document, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) said on Tuesday.
"The draft IRP has been reverse engineered to force nuclear into the energy mix and this in itself raises numerous questions about why the department is rushing this process," Outa energy portfolio director Ted Blom said.
Furthermore, the IRP was "an incomplete document that has already been gazetted, withdrawn and republished just in the last week", Blom said.
There are two versions of the draft IRP-2016 document "floating about in the public domain and this will add to the confusion".
While the Department of Energy had given notice of the presentations to the public at various locations throughout the country on its website, starting on December 7, it had not advertised these sessions widely enough and, as such, Outa said it disputed the required consultative and public engagement process was being conducted meaningfully.
The organisation wrote to Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson on Monday requesting her to withdraw the draft IRP-2016 process for a number of reasons, but primarily because it needed to flow from an Integrated Energy Process (IEP), which itself had yet to be finalised.
"When combined with the defective engagement process, it becomes clear to us that citizens’ rights, entrenched in the Constitution, are being trampled upon. It is Outa’s contention that if left unchallenged, the process to hastily introduce nuclear energy generation as promoted by Eskom and the beneficiaries of state capture will certainly follow," it said.
"The nuclear deal was flagged as a highly suspicious issue several times in the recent public protector’s report on state capture, which also found prima facie evidence of wrongdoing with Eskom, its board and its recently resigned CEO Brian Molefe," Outa said.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.