Cyril’s take on the nuclear deal, China and Brics

President Cyril Ramaphosa has confirmed discussing the nuclear deal with Russian president Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting of the three-day Brics summit held in Sandton, with Ramaphosa informing his counterpart that the build programme – expected to cost the country about R1 trillion – was not feasible due to South Africa’s financial constraints.

The controversial nuclear deal with Russia, which first surfaced during ex-president Jacob Zuma’s reign, has been a source of great discomfort to Ramaphosa and ANC leaders, including Pravin Gordhan, sacked by Zuma as finance minister due to his opposition to the deal.

“The nuclear matter came up. They wanted to know where we are and we said that our policy is to have an energy mix of coal, hydro, wind and nuclear,” said Ramaphosa at a media briefing at the conclusion of the Brics summit yesterday.

“We said that, right now, we cannot go ahead because we have huge financial constraints and we are not able to deal with the build programme.

“President Putin was very understanding.

“We told him that we are going to deal with priorities first.

“We could look at that once our economy grows.”

Ramaphosa said South Africa’s level of economic cooperation with Russia also centred on mining and equipment-making.

Reflecting on relations with China, Ramaphosa said China was the world’s second-largest economy.

“While being a developing country, China is doing a lot to support emerging economies. They are willing to support other economies, contributing to skills development,” he said. “We agreed to work closely with China on the fourth industrial revolution, with them contributing capacity-building.

“It is a mutually beneficial relationship and not a situation of one country benefitting to the exclusion of another.”

Asked whether South Africa’s close ties with China would not sour relations with the United States, Ramaphosa responded: “All of us in Brics are independent, free countries and we choose who to associate with – not to the exclusion of other countries.

“We should not be told who our friends and enemies should be.

“Our partnership is underpinned by principles of solidarity. Our political orientation is also very similar.

“During our retreat, we had heart-to-heart discussions and could not wish for a better association than Brics.

“Brics has emerged as an important block in world affairs.”

Ramaphosa hailed the 10th Brics summit as having been “hugely successful”.

“We had leaders representing 40% of the world population, 26% of global land, 22% of the world GDP and 17% of world trade,” said Ramaphosa. “As South Africa, we resolved to use our Brics membership as leverage for Africa.”

“As Brics, we discussed the need to strengthen the multilateralism trade system against unilateralism.

“We endorsed the global centrality of the United Nations as a body to promote human rights and called for a reform of the UN Security Council,” Ramaphosa said.

He said Brics resolved to establish a women’s forum and a vaccine centre to be built in South Africa to conduct research “for the advancement of all humanity”.

– brians@citizen.co.za

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.