Supreme Court: “CT Power should be given a chance to explain”

The promoters of CT Power have been successful in their appeal at the Supreme Court. A ruling handed down on Thursday afternoon by Justices A.F. Chui Yew Cheong and R. Teelock, has stated that: “The rejection of the Letter of Comfort was in breach of the legitimate expectation of CT Power that it would be treated fairly and be given an opportunity to answer the objections of the Ministry of Finance.”

CT Power had obtained permission on 16 July 2015, to seek a judicial review of the refusal of the Ministry of Finance to confirm that the promoter has complied with condition 15 of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) licence issued to it for the setting up of a 2×55 MW coal fired power plant at Pointe aux Caves, Albion. Also, CT Power sought redress against the refusal of the Ministry of Energy and Public Utilities to execute an agreed version of an Implementation Agreement between the government of Mauritius and CT Power. The question in this case is whether CT Power has a legitimate expectation to be consulted before the rejection of the Letter of Comfort and to be given the opportunity to refute the reasons invoked, observed the Supreme Court. “In our view, CT Power does have such legitimate expectation. We say so because in our view, by holding meetings with CT Power in January 2015, both the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Energy were representing that they were in the process of resolving how best would condition 15 be satisfied by CT Power,” ruled the Bench. Justices A.F. Chui Yew Cheong and R. Teelock went on to say that in all fairness, CT Power should have been informed why the Letter of Comfort was not satisfactory and should have been given an opportunity to justify itself. On 21 April 2006, the BOI told CT Power that it would be issued an Investment Certificate upon the fulfilment of certain terms and conditions. Amongst: (1) a Power Purchase Agreement is to be signed between the CEB and CT Power with respect to the purchase of electricity from CT Power and (2) an EIA licence is to be obtained from the Department of Environment. By agreement, the Project was later changed to a 2×55 MW coal fired power station to be situated at Pointe aux Caves. In December 2008, CT Power and the CEB signed a Power Purchase Agreement, under which the CEB agreed to purchase and CT Power agrees to sell the contract capacity and contract energy generated by the power station.