Court kills Karpowership deal: 'A huge victory for the public' says Outa

702's John Maytham talks to Stefanie Fick, Executive Director for Accountability at OUTA.

The Karpowership deal has been dealt a death blow after the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) won its case in the Pretoria High Court with a ruling which overturns the licences granted to the Turkish company, a subsidiary of Karadeniz Holding.

The licenses were issued by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) so that three of the floating power stations could be used as 'emergency” electricity at the height of the loadshedding crisis.

The plan was to station the power-generation ships in three South African ports.

The deals were estimated to cost around R200 billion over the 20-year contract period.

Opposition to the plan was based on the huge cost, environmental concerns and the duration of the contract.

Outa says it regards the court ruling as a significant legal victory, and a huge victory for the public.

"At the time this was so urgent that we 'couldn't live' without the ships. Guess what - here we sit and although our network is by no stretch of the imagination stable, at least we're not suffering loadshedding. Just think if that amount of money disappeared on your electricity bill - if we had to take a poll now of how many people think their electricity is affordable at this point, it would have been way worse."

Stefanie Fick, Executive Director: Accountability - OUTA

The reason Outa challenged Nersa boils down to the fact that the energy regulator was not acting rationally when it granted the licenses, says Fick.

"At that point Nersa didn't have environmental authorisation, they didn't have financial closure, their grid access was later taken away. And despite so many things hanging in the air, the generation licenses were granted in any case. We think that, as the regulator, Nersa needs to make these decisions rationally." 

Stefanie Fick, Executive Director: Accountability - OUTA

For more detail, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article