I once attended a talk about Eskom's pebble bed plans. Apparently, SA's enormous coal deposits are a long way from urban centres, so either the coal has to be moved there, or long lengths of power grid are needed. If I remember correct, they chose the first and Eskom is now literally trucking all that coal across the country. I don't think there's a viable gas pipe to South Africa, so they are stuck with coal or nuclear, and decided they would go nuclear.

But from what I understand, Eskom has become very politicized since the end of apartheid.