Electricity & energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has said he wants any process by the government to procure nuclear energy to be completely transparent to the public. Setting aside for a moment the government’s failure to convincingly show that SA needs to procure nuclear energy in the first place, Ramokgopa will first have to address the constraints he has admitted to at the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) if he hopes to keep any future energy procurement open and fair.
Ramokgopa withdrew a January determination published in the Government Gazette for SA to procure 2,500MW of nuclear power after civil society organisations applied to the high court for relief, saying the public participation process run by Nersa to issue concurrence for the procurement suffered from procedural unfairness (including the regulator’s refusal to provide key information to the public).
This was not the first time Nersa has been challenged for failing to provide the public with access to its decision-making processes. In 2022, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) filed an application on similar grounds to review and set aside Nersa’s decision to grant generation licences to Karpowership.
However, performance on public participation is not the only problem at Nersa.
Ramokgopa has said he doesn’t think Nersa can deal with tariff-related issues that are becoming increasingly complex as the electricity market is liberalised — and the industry agrees with him.
The government and business need SA to move fast on setting up a competitive electricity market that will bring in the billions of rand of investment needed in generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. If problems at Nersa are not urgently addressed, the regulator will continue to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to achieving this.
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