The ANC used its majority on parliament’s mineral resources & energy portfolio committee to quash an inquiry into the department of mineral resources & energy’s programme to procure more than 2,000MW of emergency power.
ANC MPs said at a committee meeting on Tuesday the court that dismissed a challenge to the process by a losing bidder had fully probed the issues the planned inquiry would have dealt with.
The committee’s decision removes any further scrutiny of the deal that was awarded to Turkish company Karpowership and the risk mitigation independent power producer programme (RMIPPP) as a whole.
DNG Energy alleged that corruption involving government officials had led to Karpowership, which supplies electricity from gas-fired plants on ships, winning the bulk of the contract. But the court rejected the allegations and found that DNG had failed to meet numerous qualification criteria.
Parliament’s legal adviser, Andile Tetyana, said he is not aware of any appeal by DNG, and noted that the company had to lodged an appeal within 15 days of the judgment, giving it a deadline of February 18. Any appeal would only deal with the legal interpretation by the high court and not the facts of the matter, which would have been the sole focus of any inquiry by the committee.
Tetyana said the only negative finding by the court was the failure of the department’s director-general and deputy director-general to leave a meeting with a potential bidder at which an attempt was made to influence the process. But the court found that this attempt had failed, making the issue moot.
Mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe could be asked to report on what had been done about the conduct of the officials.
Terms of reference
ANC MP Sibusiso Kula and other ANC MPs said that proceeding with the inquiry in the light of the court judgment would be a waste of money, but DA MP Kevin Mileham proposed that the committee investigate all aspects of the RMIPPP. He argued that the terms of reference for the inquiry went beyond the Karpowership contract and included the RMIPPP programme in its entirety, also its conception and affordability and whether the law was followed.
The committee would be abrogating its oversight responsibility by not proceeding with the inquiry, and trying to sweep it under the carpet “smells distinctly fishy”, Mileham said.
DA MP James Lorimer noted that the committee would be left with “rather a lot of egg on its face” if the Supreme Court of Appeal came to a different conclusion to the high court.
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