Another Bell Pottinger-style nuclear charm offensive planned for South Africa

By now it is no secret that the government plans to add 2,500MW of nuclear power to the country’s energy mix in 2030. Just the other day, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) invited comment on the plan.

Writing in Daily Maverick in July 2020, Dirk Knoesen, Emeritus Professor in Physics, and Director of the Nanoscience Platform at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and Senior Professor Leslie Petrik, of the Department of Chemistry, warned that “the feasibility of new generation nuclear reactions providing energy safely in the near future is slim”.

The month before, in June, Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, justified the issuing of a renewed request for information (RFI) on the nuclear build and that it would follow “robust funding options”.

Now a Russia-based communications outfit, Creative Project Agency, has put out a call to South African partners to mount a media roadshow including print, online and TV and crafted around a mysterious “independent speaker” who will be punting nuclear energy, and Rosatom of course.

Project manager Natalia Ghittori, in a mailer to potential South African partners, wrote coyly that “one of our clients – a big Russian state-run energy corporation (the name of the company we can’t reveal for the moment under NDA) – is interested in running a PR campaign in South Africa and we are looking for a local partner to assist us in this task”.

Following a Department of Mineral Resources briefing in May 2020, environmental justice NGO Earthlife Africa — Johannesburg and the Southern African Faith Communities — which forced Vladimir Putin and Zuma’s R1-trillion “secret” nuclear deal out into the open and into the courts — warned that proceeding with any nuclear deal would be in breach of a judgment handed down by the Western Cape High Court in 2017.

Future deals will be limited by the judgment, but Mantashe and nuclear advocates are forging ahead.

Knoesen and Petrick, in their overview of the nuclear landscape, concluded “one has to ask why the nuclear RFI was issued now, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and despite our huge debt burden. Has someone been incentivised to bring nuclear on to the table again, hoping that we are all too distracted to notice?”

As far as the incoming campaign is concerned, the plan is not to distract, but to rather schmooze South African media – including a paid-for trip to Russia – to massage and render us less resistant to ye ole nuclear financial aftershock.

As far as the Creative Project Agency is concerned, the campaign would look like this:

1) 13+ publications mentioning the company name in 3 months based on press materials provided by us;

2) 2+ publications in 3 months on behalf of a local independent expert favorable to nuclear technologies development in SA mentioning the Client;

3) organization of 2 press trips to Russia or another country with the following KPIs:

5 participants representing 5 South-African media,

5+ publications in local media by the result of the press trip.

Scope of works we expect on your end:

Making media list for an invitation, negotiations with media, assistance in collecting docs for the visa, follow up, and providing us with a copy of the material published.

4) organization of 4 local press events with KPIs:

10 participants representing 10 South-African media

8+ publications in local media as the result of the press trip.

Scope of works we expect on your end:

Media relations: making media list for an invitation, sending out the invitation, accreditation, working with the media on the spot, follow up, and providing us with a copy of the material published.

Event logistics: venue rent, video and audio equipment rent, catering, technical assistance to the speaker if needed.

Ghittori told Daily Maverick that “as a responsible PR agency we have NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) with all of our clients and therefore by rule we do not disclose the names of our clients”.

The mailer trawling for South African partners, she said, was just a “small portion” of the company’s communications contract “across Africa and is not specific to South Africa”.

The company also worked with “local independent experts that are willing to share their own personal views on relevant topics from a non-biased position”.

You have been warned. DM