government, accusing people it said were connected to Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and senior energy department officials of corruption to ensure that Karpowership won.
The country’s efforts to add power capacity with an emergency programme ground to a halt when 39-year-old Aldworth Mbalati’s DNG group of companies the government alleging corruption in the award of a contract. DNG, which has UK politician Peter Hain on its board and, according to Mbalati, counts Helios Investment Partners among its backers, lost the case in South Africa’s High Court in January. It applied to appeal, a decision on which will determine whether the project will be stalled further.
After South Africa’s Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, which oversaw the tender, rejected DNG’s bids, the company sued the government, accusing people it said were connected to Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and senior energy department officials of corruption to ensure Karpowership won. Those people have denied any wrongdoing.
“Banks remain risk averse about the DNG appeal,” said Peter Attard Montalto, head of capital markets research at Intellidex. “If the case is admitted to the roll it will delay financial close of the emergency power program considerably further and push back the arrival of energy onto the grid maybe into 2024.”Failure of the appeal would raise questions about what’s next for DNG - and Mbalati.
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