Eskom

Kusile Power Station / Image via: Wikimedia Commons

Kusile and Medupi: Eskom blames delays on ‘poor welding’, bad weather

Eskom made submissions to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Appropriations on Wednesday, 2 September 2020, to give an account of its affairs

Eskom

Kusile Power Station / Image via: Wikimedia Commons

Despite earlier assertions from Eskom management that there has been progress in completing both the Kusile and Medupi power stations, the power utility has admitted that it is experiencing a range of problems.

Eskom made submissions to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Appropriations on Wednesday, 2 September 2020, to give an account of its affairs.

The appearance comes as the power utility has been unable to keep the lights on, citing its strained generation units.

While Medupi is set to be completed at the end of 2020, work on the Kusile power station will be done in 2023.

‘Inadequate time to plan’

The power utility has cited unforeseen circumstances as part of the reason it incurred cost overruns. Those include strike action, which has in total, has accumulated to 18 months. Eskom has also said there were welding issues which led to an eight month delay.

“Given the inadequate time to plan, absence of suitable resources in the country (in quantum and skill) and other consequential issues, Eskom , in an overly optimistic way, endeavoured to manage a programme of this magnitude for the benefit of the country”, the utility added.

The committee also heard that another key factor that needed to be considered was the fact that the building of Medupi was contrary to how other projects are approached around the world.

Globally projects are not built the way Eskom approached Medupi but are built one unit a time. Ideally in the South African context, a comprehensively defined green field project should take approximately 5 years in development”, it said.

“The results of poor pre-planning due to late start decisions are detrimental to project execution. Repeatability and forward planning can produce better cost and schedule certainty”

Eskom said that recognised from the beginning of the new build programme that there were not enough engineers who could adequately execute “Medupi, Kusile, Return to Service Units and Gas projects at the same time”

Corruption

Probably one of the biggest contributors to Eskom’s problems is the corruption that has plagued the utility for decades. In the latest case, a former Kusile senior manager was nabbed for allegedly receiving millions from a R745 million contract.

“Delays caused as a result of modifications to critical contracts not being possible due to these contractors being investigated for alleged corruption”, it said.