Another R33bn needed to complete Medupi, Kusile

It will cost another R33bn to fully complete the Medupi and Kusile power stations, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in parliament on Thursday.

According to the information provided to him by Eskom, another R19bn and R14bn would have to be spent to complete Medupi and Kusile power stations, respectively.

During a question-andanswer session with MPs in the

National Assembly, Ramaphosa expressed confidence that the work would be completed within the budgeted amounts as there was a much heightened awareness of corruption and procurement processes were being closely scrutinised.

“When these units are being built, we will be watching this thing like hawks,” he said.

The construction of the power stations was vastly over budget and took much longer to construct than planned.

The original budgets for the two power stations were R80bn each, but cost overruns and delays saw the cost to completion swell to about R154bn and R146bn for Medupi and Kusile, respectively

COMMISSIONING

Ramaphosa noted that all six units of Medupi had reached commercial operation and what remained was to complete the balance of the plant and remedial works.

Four out of six units at Kusile were in commercial operation and the focus was on completing the commissioning of the remaining two units.

“Eskom’s intention is to complete the remaining scope of works at Medupi and Kusile within the current project budgets approved by the Eskom board,” he said.

Eskom was making steady progress in developing and implementing effective solutions to the major plant defects at both power stations.

The energy availability and reliability of the commissioned units is improving on an ongoing basis.

“The effective correction of the major defects at Medupi and Kusile will ensure that the plants achieve their contractual performance with improved reliability and availability factors.”

He noted that before the correction of the major plant defects at Medupi the energy availability factor was 64% measured over 12 months. To date in this financial year the factor was now at about 85%. These figures excluded the impact of the turbine incident at Medupi unit four, which is consequently currently offline for repairs.

CALAMITY

“There is improvement,” Ramaphosa said, remarking that the design defects had contributed significantly to loadshedding, which was a “calamity of enormous proportions”.

Processes were under way to look into the flawed designs and flawed operational capability of the plants as well as overpricing and corruption.