Koeberg nuclear station
Photo by: Duane Daws
A judgment on the ongoing battle between parastatal Eskom and Toshiba’s Westinghouse Electric Company over a R4.3-billion steam generator contract was imminent, as High Court Judge Zeenat Carelse deliberated over the arguments presented during a three-day hearing earlier this week.
Westinghouse was challenging the legal validity of power utility Eskom’s allegedly irregular decision to award France’s Areva the tender to replace six steam generators at the Koeberg nuclear power station, in Cape Town, in 2018.
The decision was brought into dispute in September last year when Westinghouse contested the tender process, obliging Eskom to supply it with documents outlining the basis for the utility’s procurement decision.
The nuclear energy firm believed that Eskom's tender committee was not entitled to suddenly introduce certain subjective "strategic considerations" or “ignore, without good grounds, the recommendations of Eskom's technical experts, who preferred Westinghouse's cheaper bid”.
Westinghouse requested that Eskom be ordered to reconsider its tender decision and disallow the strategic considerations, which Eskom allegedly conceded were not part of the tender criteria.