Safe for us to get tender — Westinghouse
NUCLEAR power company Westinghouse, which has contested a R5bn Eskom tender given to rival Areva, has disputed claims that re-awarding the contract to it would cause safety problems.
It slated Eskom’s argument as alarmist and untrue that disturbing the contentious contract to replace steam generators at Koeberg power station would be unsafe.
In December, the Supreme Court of Appeal set aside the tender as unlawful, but Eskom and Areva have appealed to the Constitutional Court, citing safety concerns should there be a significant delay to the building programme.
The Supreme Court of Appeal said the award of the tender to Areva — due to “strategic considerations” that were not included in the original bid documents — was unlawful. It set aside the award, but left it up to Eskom to take another look at the decision again, saying if it believed the strategic considerations were vital, it could begin afresh and include them when considering the tender.
Areva and Eskom want the Constitutional Court to overturn the appeal court’s decision. But they have also argued that, even if the Constitutional Court agrees that the tender award was irregular, Areva should be allowed to keep the tender.
Westinghouse is defending the Supreme Court of Appeal’s decision, but has asked the Constitutional Court in a cross appeal immediately to award the tender to it.
Eskom, supported by Areva, said the current generators were “fast approaching the end of their lifespan” and it was a matter of safety that the generators be replaced by 2018. But Westinghouse has strongly disputed this “alarmist picture” and has asked the highest court to allow it to present new evidence to show that the replacement generators could be installed safely in 2021. It also contended that Areva would not make the 2018 deadline.
In legal arguments filed yesterday, Westinghouse counsel Jeremy Gauntlett SC said the new evidence Westinghouse wanted to introduce showed that “to Eskom’s credit”, the existing generators had been maintained in good condition.
This had been confirmed by Eskom’s own safety-analysis report, he said.
He said that a report from Eskom’s technical experts supported the argument that the generators could be installed in 2021. Mr Gauntlett said that although
Areva had started on the work, it was behind schedule and would not make the 2018 deadline.
Instead, Eskom has had to accommodate Areva’s delay, at “considerable cost”, estimated at between R500m and R1bn, said Mr Gauntlett.
The suggestion that the 2018 deadline was immutable was untrue, he said. The Constitutional Court may hear new evidence, but only in exceptional circumstances. Areva has disputed the evidence Westinghouse wants to bring forward and argued against the court allowing it in.
Mr Gauntlett said the highest court was in as good a position to make the decision as to who should get the tender as Eskom’s bid tender committee, which was also not a body of specialists.
He said that if Eskom were to go through the tender process again, excluding the strategic considerations as they ought to have done, then “the only possible decision” would be to award the work to Westinghouse. The outcome was, therefore, a foregone conclusion.