Energy Minister Jeff Radebe says there is no room for favouritism in the awarding of renewable energy Independent Power Producers (IPPs) contracts.
Speaking at a media briefing on Sunday the minister said the evaluation process was conducted in a highly secure environment, which includes video and voice recordings, to mitigate the risk of corruption. He added that the evaluations were done by a multi-disciplinary team of independent advisers. Thereafter the reports are reviewed by independent reviewers with the added layer of scrutiny and monitoring by a governance and compliance team.Declaring conflicts of interest
“All bidders, evaluation teams, review teams as well as governance audit specialists involved are required to complete extensive declarations of conflicts of interest,”Radebe explained . He continued: “Bidders are also required to declare that no collusion took place in the preparation of their bids. If found to have taken place the bids will be disqualified.”Personal interests
This comes after both the minster and President Cyril Ramaphosa were accused of having vested personal interests in IPPs.Both Radebe and Ramaphosa denied the allegations with the minister noting that the 27 IPP agreements he signed last year stemmed from a decision taken by his predecessor Tina Joemat-Petersen back in 2016 and 2017.
The 27 projects are expected to bring in approximately R56 billion in new investments over the next two to three years which government hopes will contribute to growth in the economy supporting the already positive achievement of 3.1% Gross Domestic Product growth in the fourth quarter of 2017. Since 2011, a series of competitive bid windows have been offered to the market under the Renewable Energy IPP procurement programme.
