Minister of Electricity and Energy, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, says South Africa will seek to build a nuclear plant for electricity generation at ‘a scale and speed that we can afford’.

The Minister was speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Cabinet Lekgotla held in Tshwane at the weekend.

President Cyril Ramaphosa lead the first Lekgotla of the Government of National Unity (GNU), which set out the programme of action government will undertake during the seventh administration.

‘In the long term, we need to ensure that we anchor the baseload and nuclear is an important part of that intervention. We are working on the framework for procurement because we don’t want to discredit the process through a procurement process that is not transparent.

‘We will do it at the scale and speed that we can afford as a country,’ he said.

Turning to issues of electricity affordability, the Minister raised his concern that poorer communities are battling to keep up with increasing costs.

‘The poor and those that ar
e located in the townships are finding it exceptionally difficult to afford the increases in electricity. The pricing and the tariff is prohibitive and a lot of our people across the length and breadth of the country are not in a position to afford electricity.

‘Those are challenges on the distribution side…and we know that over a period of time municipalities have underinvested in the maintenance, replenishment and protection of the distribution grid and of course we are paying the price now,’ he said.

Also speaking to media at the lekgotla, Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Parks Tau assured South Africans that affirmative action policies like Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment will not be scrapped during the seventh administration.

‘These are foundational principles to the establishment of the Government of National Unity. Included in there are priorities in relation to social justice, equity and redress. Therefore, these are parties that have come together on the basis of collectively add
ressing transformation because we have committed to redress in the foundational principles.

‘The question is what do we do going forward? Of course, we need to look at the next wave of [BBBEE]…where there are lessons to be learnt, we take those lessons into account and where there are greater opportunities to be introduced we need to be able to introduce those.

‘We have placed this firmly on the agenda of the programmes that would be driven by this administration and that is why we always say we are focussing on industrialisation, but we are equally focussing on transformation,’ he said.

The Minister emphasised that the economic growth and development of South Africa is a key priority.

A key priority for the seventh administration will be to ‘leverage off the back of Operation Vulindela as a key programme’.

‘This would be a focus on network industries amongst others…looking at energy, looking at logistics in particular, the digital economy and other areas. The fact that we’ve made significant progress in
that regard enables us to use that as a springboard to grow the economy focussed on industrialisation and re-industrialisation.

‘But also, a deliberate and conscious focus on transformation because of course, this will enable us to broaden the base of entrepreneurs in the country [and] to broaden the base of participants in the economy of this country and enable us to grow the jobs that this country so much needs,’ Tau said.

Source: South African Government News Agency