Eskom looking at up to R5-million in fines over pollution at Kendal power station
The South African electricity public utility, Eskom has really gotten themselves in trouble with the law, and this time around the charges are bigger than before. The company is looking at fines of up to R5-million under South Africa’s air quality legislation for supplying blatantly false and misleading information about its toxic pollution at the
Eskom looking at up to R5-million in fines over pollution at Kendal power station
The South African electricity public utility, Eskom has really gotten themselves in trouble with the law, and this time around the charges are bigger than before. The company is looking at fines of up to R5-million under South Africa’s air quality legislation for supplying blatantly false and misleading information about its toxic pollution at the Kendal coal-fired power station to authorities.
According to the reports by Bloomberg, the company has to appear in the eMalahleni regional court on four counts of environmental transgressions on the 28th of January 2021. It was on Friday that the Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Barbara, Creecy notified Eskom of the decision by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to pursue criminal prosecution.
The four counts, according to her department, related to the emission of air pollutants at concentrations exceeding emission limits set in Kendal’s atmospheric emission licence (AEL); failure to comply with the conditions and/or the requirements of the AEL; committing an act likely to cause significant pollution of the environment, and supplying false and/or misleading information to an air quality officer.
Albi Modise, the chief director of communications at the department of environment, forestry and fisheries, says the “criminal investigation as well as the compliance notice, read with the minister’s objection decision, is based on the findings of previous site inspections” undertaken at Kendal, one of the country’s biggest power stations.
This is the first criminal investigation where the National Prosecuting Authority has decided to pursue a prosecution for a breach of air quality legislation by Eskom.
Business management consultancy EE Business Intelligence reported this week on the findings of an internal investigation compiled by Eskom’s audit and forensic team into Kendal’s air quality compliance and reporting. This was instituted by the power utility’s chief executive officer, Andre de Ruyter in May.
The internal investigation found that exceedances of particulate matter atmospheric emissions of up to 10 times the allowable limit of 100mg/Nm3 occurred consistently for extended periods over the past two years at Kendal and that this was having a significant impact on people and the environment.
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