Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin has been derided for his apparent denial of statements he made earlier this week that sabotage was behind the problems being experienced by the Koeberg nuclear power station.
Democratic Alliance spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt said on Friday Erwin was deliberately misleading the people of Cape Town.
Erwin’s denial was an extraordinary backtrack, which conveniently came only days after the municipal elections.
”Either Erwin is guilty of deliberately misleading the public on the eve of an important election or he is now simply playing semantics,” Schmidt said.
Solidarity trade union called on Erwin to apologise for misleading South Africa about problems at Koeberg.
During a media briefing at the power station near Cape Town on Friday, Erwin reportedly denied having said sabotage was responsible for the problems, and said his statements on the matter had been ”misinterpreted”.
However, during a media briefing in Pretoria on Tuesday — the day before the election — Erwin said the damage to the Koeberg nuclear plant was deliberate and not accidental.
”Let me be very clear on this. The bolt that caused the generator’s destruction did not get there by accident,” Erwin said.
The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the police were investigating.
”The investigation is ongoing and we will bring criminal charges against individuals soon.”
The police were also looking at other power outages which could have been caused by sabotage, Erwin said.
At the same briefing, Minerals and Energy Minister Lindiwe Hendricks said it had become clear that ”the recent event [Tuesday’s shutting down of Koeberg] cannot just be linked to inadequate transmission or generation capacity”.
”Clearly other forces are at play here,” she said.
Schmidt said on Friday there was simply no other inference that could be drawn from Erwin’s statement, ”other than Erwin was referring to sabotage”.
This perception was reinforced by Hendricks’ statements, which included her saying there was ”growing evidence also linking some of these problems to the government’s transformation drive”.
Schmidt said Erwin should explain why the NIA had now said it and police were investigating a case of sabotage at Koeberg.
”The implication of Erwin’s statement is that the NIA are investigating due to a misunderstanding which he caused. If this is the case, then he must immediately act to correct this,” Schmidt said.
Solidarity said in a statement Erwin and Eskom should stop looking for ways to divert attention from Eskom’s problems and rather start looking for real solutions.
”The entire country is furious with Eskom and to add insult to injury the minister now attempts to mislead people about the power company’s problems. This is unacceptable.
”Solidarity is the largest trade union at Koeberg and its members are enraged about the fact that they, as Eskom employees, are being implicated in a problem that is, in fact, the consequence of bad management and poor planning,” said Solidarity spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans.
Also on Friday, Eskom chief executive Thulani Gcabashe announced a plan to return Koeberg’s two units to full power.
”Our key focus is to ensure that at least one unit of Koeberg is running at all times.
”We plan to synchronise Koeberg unit 1 to the grid in the middle of May and commence the refuelling and maintenance outage of unit 2 in the third week of May,” he said.
Eskom had successfully acquired all the spare parts it needed for the repairs, including a rotor and stator bars, and was finalising plans to get the 200 tonne rotor to Koeberg and into unit 1.
Gcabashe said Eskom would run unit 2 at a decreasing power output until the refuelling and maintenance outage towards the end of May.
In the interim, the balance of the Cape’s electricity needs would come from high voltage transmission lines and peaking generation in the region. – Sapa