South Africa’s electricity minister attacked the country’s groundbreaking $8.5 billion climate finance pact with some of the world’s richest nations, whereby it will close some coal-fired power plants and re-purpose them to produce renewable energy.

Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told a meeting organised by Standard Bank that the closure of Eskom’s Komati Power Station, the first plant to be shuttered, was “an injustice that is unfolding at Komati in the name of the transition,” Bloomberg reported.

South Africa is currently suffering its worst-ever power cuts  as its ageing coal-fired plants, which supply more than 80% of its energy, regularly break down.

Ramokgopa was appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to the new cabinet position to specifically find ways to end the power shortages.

His observations are in line with earlier comments made by Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and the concerns of labour unions which are concerned that their members working at coal plants could lose jobs under the initiative.

South Africa - among the world's top biggest carbon emitters - is yet to produce an implementation plan that would allow money to flow from France, Germany, the US, the UK and the European Union under the plan.

“If I had my way, we would go and restart the units at Komati,” he said.

“We closed a power station which was the best-performing power station at the time that we closed it, and because someone gave us money and said decarbonize, we are getting 217 megawatts of alternative energy, and we removed 1,000 megawatts."

Ramokgopa repeated comments made previously by Mantashe that South Africa was being used as a “guinea pig” for the green transition.

(Editing by Brinda Darasha; brinda.darasha@lseg.com)