The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) on Thursday urged State-owned power utility Eskom to complete its currently-under-construction Medupi, Kusile and Ingula power stations before embarking on any new mega power station projects, particularly nuclear projects.

Outa spokesperson Ted Blom commented that the parastatal’s “many inefficiencies” and “lack of good governance and leadership” had led to a lack of public confidence in its ability to progress the nuclear “saga”.

“It is time that Eskom became more transparent and positively engaged with society on its many issues,” he said in a statement.

“It is our opinion that Eskom has been withholding crucial facts which, if illuminated to the public, clearly illustrates why it cannot be entrusted with not only the nuclear decision, but the responsibility of managing the build programme as well.”

He cited the gross overexpenditure and delays at the Limpopo-based Medupi power station, which now has an expected cost by completion in excess of R200-billion, along with a critical shortage of water that resulted in a need to commission a water pumping and storage facility that will probably not be available until 2024.

Eskom earlier published its updated cost-to-completion estimates for Medupi and Kusile. It reported that Medupi was now expected to cost R145-billion, rather than R105-billion, while Kusile, based in Mpumalanga, was expected to cost R161-billion, not R118-billion.

Neither estimate includes interest during construction, Engineering News reported this week.

Only one Medupi unit, Unit 6, is currently in commercial operation, with Unit 5 only expected to enter commercial operation in the first half of 2018. The entire six-unit project is only expected to be complete in 2020.

The “snail’s pace” of construction, the gross overexpenditure, delays, a lack of signed coal supply agreements and “irresponsible” contracting at Kusile were also heavily criticised, along with the gross overexpenditure, delays and incompetent commissioning of Unit 3 at Ingula power station, located in the Drakensburg mountain range.

Kusile is expected to be in full production by 2022, with the first unit, Unit 1, expected to begin producing only in the second half of 2018.

The first 333 MW unit, Unit 4, of Ingula pumped-storage scheme is officially in commercial operation, with the full 1 332 MW plant expected to be complete in less than a year’s time.