This is after the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, better known as Outa, won a case in the high court in Pretoria on Thursday in which the licences for Turkey's Karpowership to operate the ships were declared invalid and overturned.
In a statement, Outa declared: "This is the end of government attempts to contract the Karpowerships. The court case took three years but Outa believes it was worth it."
Government had sought to contract with Karpowership to supply the ships during the load shedding crisis in 2020 and 2021 through its "risk mitigation independent power producer procurement programme". The proposal was for the supply for 1.2GW of electricity through floating gas power stations to be moored at harbours in the Eastern Cape Coega, Western Cape Saldanha and KwaZulu-Natal Richards Bay.
"Today the high court granted Outa an order ruling that the three Karpowership electricity generation licences issued are invalid and overturned them," Outa said in its statement.
"As part of the settlement agreement, Nersa agreed to withdraw its opposition to Outa's review application, and the court formally set aside the impugned licences," Outa said.