Pressurel groups have filed a formal joint appeal against the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment's (DFFE) decision to allow the late submission of the revised Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by Karpowership SA.
According to the eco-justice organisations, the Turkish power provider’s application and the decision to grant condonation were undertaken "without proper notice or any public participation."
The group of organisations, which lodged the appeal with the department on 23 May, includes the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), groundWork, The Green Connection, Natural Justice, and the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER).
"This effectively allows Karpowerships to make substantial and significant changes to the EIA, including specialist reports, subject to another public comment period.
“Whilst public participation must be promoted in decision-making, repeated amendments place a significant burden on society to actively respond each time," said groundWork representative Yegeshni Moodley in a joint statement.
"We believe that the process of granting the condonation was procedurally unfair. The lapsed EIA process could not be revived through the condonation approval."
Regarding the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA), the appeal suspends the decision to grant condonation, and consequently, the processes that flow from this decision are also suspended.
Therefore, by operation of the law, the EIA process for Richards Bay is suspended.
"The stubborn refusal of Karpowership and its service providers to honour the EIA process,” Moddley said, “is representative of its conduct in other countries, locking Ghana, Lebanon, and other states into long-term energy contracts," Moodley said.
"South Africans need to stand up and question why these power ships are being touted above all other options when it will not even address our energy crisis.
“The who, why, and how need to be publicly aired. Having a R200 billion investment sail away in 20 years is not a legacy for the youth of South Africa," she added.
The civil society organisations say they are concerned about the Karpowership deals following media reports that according to price evaluation bids by the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy's (DMRE), Karpowership could cost R10.9 billion every year for the next two decades, totalling R218 billion.
They say load shedding is stymying South Africa's economic growth, and expensive energy can potentially increase electricity prices with a knock-on effect on inflation, unemployment, and small-scale fishers.
Neville van Rooy, outreach coordinator for The Green Community, said there had been "critical discrepancies compounded by poor public participation processes with the small-scale fishing communities.”
It is believed that their livelihoods will be affected by the vessels.
Since Karpowership entered the fray as an alleviation strategy for South Africa’s failing energy grid, it has been established that the company’s power-generating vessels will not end load shedding.
Because costs could also be affected by foreign exchange rates, the ships could introduce new risks to energy security.
"This never-ending, incremental EIA process for Karpowership, outside of the regulated process and timeframes, is an abuse of the EIA process. This is why we are appealing the condonation application,” SDCEA representative Tanica Naidoo said.
“Civil society has repeatedly expressed concerns about the inadequate public participation," the organisations said in their joint statement.
Naidoo said communities and fishermen of Richards Bay do not want another polluting source on their shores.
“Many fishermen in Richards Bay rely on the ocean as a source of food and income and, they do not want these power ships coming and destroying the ocean. Will the decrease in load-shedding stages with Karpowership be worth all the damage that will surely follow?”
