given to a Turkish power company, but no one seems likely to be held accountable for their roles in granting the permissions – not government officials, not the company or the environmental consultant involved in the application.
The department later revoked the exemption, acknowledging that there was not a genuine emergency need to provide back-up power to hospitals and health care facilities – also stating that Karpowership failed to disclose it was preparing for the DMER procurement project. But Modise ruled out any disciplinary action against officials over the Karpowership directive on the basis that they had acted in good faith.
“At the time of making the application, this was critical in terms of immediate and emergency efforts to ameliorate the impact of Covid-19. The power would have been supplied into the national grid to provide secure electricity supply, which would mitigate the risk of load-shedding on these critical support industries as well as health care facilities.
At the time of making its application, Karpowership had provided all relevant information available and “strongly denies any suggestion of impropriety or a contravention of the relevant legislation and/or regulations”.