“The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Company (PBMR) could be kept as a subsidiary within the Eskom fold, instead of being converted into a stand-alone state-owned enterprise as initially planned,” said Public Enterprises Director-General Portia Molefe yesterday.
The PBMR is now an unincorporated joint venture within Eskom. Molefe said in an interview after briefing Parliament’s Public Enterprises Committee on her department’s budget and strategic plans that keeping the PBMR within Eskom would significantly reduce the risks of the project, especially given the concerns about whether it could be delivered on time.
The PBMR Company has set itself the deadline of 2011 for the construction of a pilot pebble bed nuclear reactor in Cape Town and a pilot fuel plant at Pelindaba outside Pretoria. Commercial production is scheduled to commence in 2012.
Molefe said that if the project resided within Eskom, it would be able to draw on the utility’s experience in building plant and leverage off the rest of the government’s nuclear programme. This would also reduce the component costs for the PBMR, which has already cost more than R2 billion.
If the PBMR was a separate company outside Eskom it would be necessary to bridge the corporate divides, making it more difficult to leverage synergies. Molefe told the committee that Eskom had to undergo significant restructuring so it could deliver on a much bigger nuclear programme. Former CEO Thulani Gcabashe would assist.
The restructuring was integrated into the draft nuclear strategy submitted to the cabinet by the minerals and energy department. The government has committed itself to expanding nuclear energy generation to overcome Eskom’s capacity constraints.
Committee members were critical of the department’s tardiness in supplying details of the number of directorships held by board members of state-owned enterprises. The issue came to prominence recently when it transpired that former Fidentia Director Danisa Baloyi sat on 81 boards.
Molefe said it was necessary to check the information held by the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) with the companies and board members themselves as the CIPRO database was not up to date. She said Public Enterprises Minister Hogan would provide details to the committee either today or next week.
She pointed out that there was no provision in law restricting the number of directorships a person could hold.
Issued by: Department of Public Enterprises
3 November 2009
Source: Department of Public Enterprises (http://www.dpe.gov.za/)
