Karpowership
The Local Business Committee (LBC), a group claiming to have the support of more than 5 000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, has thrown its weight behind Karpowership’s plan for a gas-to-electricity ‘power ship’ to be moored in the Eastern Cape industrial port of Ngqura.
Despite opposition from several quarters to Karpowership’s broader plans to have three such ships at the ports of Ngqura Richards Bay and Saldanha Bay, the LBC on Friday said it backs the plan and will be marching to Transnet’s offices in Coega this week to highlight its support.
During a media briefing, the LBC’s leadership said concerns raised by environmentalists and fishing communities about the anticipated impact on the coastal ecosystem is “merely a propaganda campaign”.
The business committee told Moneyweb it has not received complaints from local fishermen in Coega about Karpowership’s plans, but that it remains open to engaging them should they feel the need to.
The LBC, which interestingly exists under the guidance of the office of the provincial Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Agriculture, said it will mobilise its constituents and march to the Transnet National Ports Authority in Coega on Wednesday to call for the fast-tracking of the project.
LBC secretary-general Masixole Mashelele says they are going there to hand over our memorandum of understanding, to say let the Karpowership project start and solve the issue of poverty and unemployment in the region.
He could not clarify the business committee’s strategy behind the planned march on Wednesday but said Transnet is one of many destinations the committee will be targeting to make its position known.
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) in September granted Karpowership – a subsidiary of the Turkish Karadeniz Energy Group – three licences to generate power on floating gas-to-electricity ships at the country’s three industrial ports.
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