SA government sued over power strategy

South Africa’s biggest labour union and three opposition parties sued the nation’s president, the energy and public enterprises ministries and power utility Eskom over their approach to ending a 15-year energy crisis.

The lawsuit, filed in the High Court in the capital, Pretoria, seeks a wide range of remedies including the exemption of all hospitals and agriculture from electricity outages to the release of documents regarding the non-performance of two coal-fired plants that ran billions of dollars over budget. The legal action also seeks to have the planned shutdown of coal-fired facilities reconsidered.

The case was filed by 19 applicants including opposition parties Build One South Africa, the United Democratic Movement and Action South Africa, as well as the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa. It was filed against eight respondents including Eskom, President Cyril Ramaphosa, the government departments and the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.

Ramaphosa’s office declined to comment.