South African environment minister Barbara Creecy has given Turkish energy firm Karpowership another chance to obtain environmental approval for its proposed emergency power projects at Richards Bay and Saldanha Bay.
Karpowership wants to permanently anchor gas-fired power ships at Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal in the Eastern Cape and Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape.
Civil justice and environmental groups had appealed against a decision to grant Karpowership an extra 60 days to submit an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for its Richards Bay project, but Creecy rejected this appeal on 22 July.
The groups claimed that it was procedurally unfair that interested and affected parties had not been given an opportunity to comment on Karpowership's application for an extension. The department of forestry, fisheries and environment's (DFFE) mandate to grant the extension had expired, the groups said in the appeal, and allowing Karpowership to amend its EIA was an abuse of the process.
But the appellants' grounds of appeal were without merit, Creecy said. The DFFE was not obliged to obtain consent from interested and affected parties, or make them aware of an EIA application extension, she said. She also denied that the DFFE's mandate to grant an extension had expired.
The "vexatious, frivolous and invalid appeal" from environmental groups was consistent with their "modus operandi to continually extend timelines in order to delay and derail the project", Creecy said.
"The continuation of the current application is lawful, while the granting of the condonation request is standing," she said.
On the same day, Creecy granted Karpowership permission to resubmit its application and supporting documents for its project at Saldanha Bay, thereby overturning the DFFE's 23 May refusal. DFFE initially refused to allow Karpowership more time to submit documents in support of its Saldanha Bay project on the basis that its failure to submit a generic environmental management programme report (EMP) rendered its application as "fatally flawed". Karpowership did not indicate how it would meet regulatory requirements should its request be granted, the DFFE said.
Creecy reversed the DFFE's decision on the grounds that an application for an extension does not need to explain how all regulatory requirements would be met. And Karpowership withdrew its initial EIA and EMP not to "correct a fatal flaw" but to correct "an administrative oversight", the minister said.
The firm now has until 19 September — 60 days from the date of Creecy's decision — to subject the generic EMP to a 30-day public participation process and resubmit its application for environmental authorisation.
Meanwhile, a Karpowership project at the Port of Ngqura remains in limbo after the DFFE refused to authorise it on the basis that the location of the firm's vessels would conflict with a planned port development, which includes a liquid bulk terminal. Discussions between the Turkish firm and port authority TNPA to resolve the impasse continue.
Karpowership's controversial 20-year contract award, estimated to be worth over 200bn rand ($12.5bn), has been beset by allegations of corruption and government interference ever since the firm was awarded nearly two-thirds of an emergency power tender in March 2021.
The deadline for emergency power projects to obtain authorisation and reach financial close was originally 31 July 2021. This has been extended numerous times, with the latest deadline being December 2023.
