Government will not be issuing a call for proposals for its nuclear power expansion programme on Friday to allow for more time for consultations, which could mean shifting responsibility for implementation of the project from the Department of Energy to Eskom, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe confirmed on Thursday.

“There are consultations that are taking place. You will recall that when Cabinet deliberated on this matter in December 2015, at that time, the whole issue of this nuclear process was going to be led by the Department of Energy,” Radebe told a post-Cabinet media briefing.

“There is now recently talk of Eskom, that is why I am referring to it in terms of 'consultation'.

“Those types of consultations must unfold before the RFP [request for proposals], so that the instituting authority can be clearly defined.”

This meant, he said, that the RFP would not be issued on Friday, adding that the consultations he mentioned were “unfolding as we speak”.

Radebe was asked about conflicting statements from Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson and her science and technology counterpart, Naledi Pandor, as to whether the RFP would still proceed as planned on Friday.

Pandor this week indicated it would not, contradicting the energy Minister.

Eskom CEO Brian Molefe last week told MPs and the media that concerns about whether the country could afford to procure the capacity to add 9 600 MW of nuclear energy to the grid were overwrought.

He said given the roughly 80-year lifespan of nuclear plants, the programme would pay for itself over those decades. Molefe was adamant that renewable energy could not be considered a viable alternative as it was not sufficiently reliable.