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Legal dispute threatens South Africa’s

emergency power bid efforts

SOUTH AFRICA DNG Energy’s legal bid to prevent Turkey’s Kar- to Bloomberg.
powership from winning a $16bn contract to Karpowership is a unit of the Karadeniz
supply 1,220 MW of emergency power has been Energy Group, the world’s biggest supplier of
put back until July. electricity from mobile power plants housed on
DNG Energy argues that the winning bid ships. Its South African venture is 49% owned by
from Karpowership does not contain enough local company Powergroup SA.
local content, and is challenging in court an DNG, whose bid to build gas-fired power
exemption from the local-content requirement. plants in South Africa was disqualified, alleged
DNG also argues that Karpowership would in its court filing that the tender process was
expose the country to using natural gas for 20 tainted by corruption and that people connected
years, rather than renewables. to Gwede Mantashe, the mineral resources and
The legal action comes as Karpowership and energy minister, had tried to solicit a bribe.
other winners of emergency power contracts DNG did not name the people and Mantashe
must complete regulatory requirements and said that he will respond in court.
have funding in place by the end of June in order Karpowership maintained that it won the
for their contracts to enter into force. contract fairly, denied that it had sought delays
The South African government emergency to the bid submission date as alleged by DNG,
power programme aims to ease the current and called on the losing bidder to elaborate on its
power shortage caused by Eskom’s inability to accusations of wrongdoing so it could adequately
meet the country’s needs. respond.
DNG dropped its initial demand that the Karpowership will also need to reach agree-
entire tender process be scrapped after a May ments with Eskom and the state ports company,
18 meeting between the parties involved in its Transnet Ltd, for its bid to come into force.
lawsuit, and it will now solely focus on arguing Eskom said several requirements will need to be
that it should replace the Turkish company as a met before it signs any accord.™
preferred bidder, Karpowership said, according

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