Stalemate over Morupule B's US$800m expansion goes to OP

The pension fund wants a piece of the action
The pension fund wants a piece of the action

The country’s highest office has entered the four-year deadlock over whether government should go ahead with the US$800 million (P8.6 billion) expansion of Morupule B; several highly placed insiders have confirmed to BusinessWeek.

Two Asian mega-corps – Marubeni from Japan and Posco from South Korea – won the tender to expand Morupule B by 300MW in 2015 and were due to have begun work in January 2017 on a 42-month contract.

While Morupule B currently has four units capable of producing 600MW, it has never produced that much due to frequent breakdowns and is due to undergo intensive repairs over the next four years. The Asian joint venture meanwhile has still not kicked off due to a dispute over a government support agreement required for the two firms to reach financial close.

Editor's Comment
A step in the right direction

It has only been a month since the newly elected government, the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), took power, and there are already a lot of changes. Across different ministries, ministers are hard at work. Following heavy rainfall and storms that hit Francistown recently, the Minister of State Presidency, Moeti Mohwasa, made a commitment that government will assist those affected by the heavy rains. Mohwasa, when addressing the media in...

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