HILARY JOFFE: Eskom procurement story hints at greater inefficiency ahead
Surely any tender for the Duvha coal should look at the total cost
I'm sure I am missing something. But I have to wonder why the government insists that Eskom go out to tender to give coal miners a chance to truck coal over long distances to Duvha power station instead of doing a cost-effective deal with the coal mine that sits right under the power station and sends it up by conveyer belt. I am deeply puzzled too about why the government chooses expensive, dirty gas-fired powerships to provide two-thirds of the emergency power it went out to procure but declines to make it easy for mining and industrial firms to generate large quantities of clean energy for free to power their own operations and take pressure off SA's electricity grid.
The two procurement stories may tick all the right procedural boxes. But they raise questions about the ever more complex and bureaucratic procurement processes in the public sector and whether they prevent corruption as intended or simply result in dysfunctional outcomes. They raise questions also about wheth...
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