The Local Business Committee (LBC) – a group claiming to have the support of more than 5 000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality – has thrown its weight behind Karpowership’s plan for a gas-to-electricity ‘power ship’ to be moored in the Eastern Cape industrial port of Coega.
Despite opposition from several quarters to Karpowership’s broader plans to have three such ships at the ports of Coega, Richards Bay and Saldanha Bay, the LBC on Friday said it backs the plan and will be marching to Transnet’s offices in Coega this week to highlight its support.
LBC secretary general Masixole Mashelele said: “They [fishing communities] are not at Coega anyways, [as] Coega is an industrial development zone. So they’ve got nothing to do with fishing at Coega. We see this as propaganda or a narrative that is trying to block the black-owned company [being established].”
However, since the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) named the company as one of the preferred bidders in the department’s Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMI4P) in March, Karpowership has met with resistance from environmentalists, fishing communities and civil rights organisations.
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https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/nelson-mandela-bay-sme-group-backs-karpowership-plans-march-to-transnet/