The DA has questioned cabinet's decision to approve the procurement of the nuclear power deal and has questioned why former Energy Minister, Ben Martins, signed off the gazetted decision.
DA MP, Gordon Mackay, says furthermore the Cabinet decision was dated the 11th of November 2013.
He says for two years the government and the current Energy Minister, Tina Joematt-Petterson, have consistently peddled the line that Cabinet had not approved the nuclear procurement process which will cost South Africa unaffordable billions of rands.
Mackay says clearly government has been committing a grand deception.
He says its clear that the decision on the nuclear energy programme was taken in 2013, and therefore engagements with foreign nuclear suppliers have been more serious than Tina Joemat-Pettersson would disclose.
Mackay says the South African public has been grossly misled.
Meanwhile, Eskom said there is no rush to fast-track the environmental impact assessment report for South Africa’s first new nuclear power station.
The power utility’s environmental manager, Deidre Herbst, told Fin24 that they were due to hand its final report to the national Department of Environmental Affairs in February next year.
She said Eskom initiated the environmental impact assessment for the proposed construction of a nuclear power station in 2006.
The process recommended that the first power station to be built as part of the 9 600 MW nuclear procurement programme should be constructed at Thyspunt near Cape St Francis in the Eastern Cape.
It was reported on Thursday that Cabinet had decided to forge ahead with its controversial nuclear procurement programme.
