Energy minister Gwede Mantashe has suspended nuclear regulator board member
Energy minister Gwede Mantashe has suspended civil society’s representative from the board of South Africa’s National Nuclear Regulator (NNR). The suspension of Koeberg Alert Alliance’s (KAA’s) Peter Becker comes during the same week in which the first of two units at Eskom’s Koeberg Nuclear Power Station was taken offline for a major life extension project.
In an update on its website, the Alliance said the NNR board secretary had denied Becker access to the agenda and document pack for a meeting on Monday, 17 January 2022.
The NNR is this week discussing and deciding on certain technical aspects of work being done at Koeberg that require its prior approval.
Becker wanted to see the documents after the board failed to invite him to Monday’s meeting. He also discovered his access to an online document portal had been revoked.
He wrote to the board’s chairperson asking for reasons why he was denied access but did not receive a response. He subsequently received a letter from minister Mantashe at 14:00 on Tuesday, 18 January 2022, informing him of his suspension.
The KAA called the exclusion of Becker as a community representative “deeply disturbing” at a time when difficult decisions needed to be made about Koeberg.
In his reasoning for the suspension, Mantashe said the NNR chairperson had informed him that Becker’s conduct prompted the board to get a legal opinion to establish whether it posed a conflict with his role and fiduciary duty as a member of the board.
That opinion, provided by MacRobert Attorneys, was supposedly shared with Becker on 8 October 2021.
“While Mr Becker indicated that he disputes the contents of the opinion, he has not made any written representations to me,” Mantashe said.
“As the allegations levelled against Mr Becker are of a serious nature, and his continued presence on the board may prejudice its effective functioning, I consider it prudent to suspend Mr Becker.”
Becker has been granted an opportunity to submit written representation on why he should not be discharged from office as a board director by 11 February 2022. MyBroadband asked the department for comment on the specific nature of the misconduct allegations against Becker but did not immediately receive a response to our queries.
Source: mybroadband
In other news – WATCH: Chaos as people loot money from cash-in-transit van after robbers left
Suspects bombed a cash-in-transit vehicle along the N7 on-ramp in Cape Town on Tuesday which led to a frenzy on the busy road as by-standers swarmed the cash van and began taking the money that spilled onto the road.
The scene unfolded before the eyes of motorists before 7 pm as police managed to arrest four suspects. Learn more
