Eskom's R66bn bailout 'not because of the Guptas'

Eskom has applied to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to recover an amount of R66.6 billion due to an over-estimation of revenue.

Nersa says, if approved, consumers will ultimately foot the bill through higher electricity tariffs. 

Nersa's spokesperson Charles Hlebela says the public has been invited to comment on the proposed application.

"The RCA reconciles the actual revenue, expenditure and forecasts that have been done. It quantifies the over or under collection of revenue or expenditure on Eskom's part. So it is going to be recovered from Eskom's customers."

Various law enforcement agencies and Parliament are investigating the looting of Eskom, allegedly orchestrated by the Gupta family.

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Eskom's Khulu Phasiwe denied that the R66 billion should be seen to recover the millions looted at the state-owned enterprise.

"People should try to desist from conflating issues. Indeed, there have been a handful of people in Eskom that have been found with their hands in the cookie (jar) and doing the wrong thing."

He insists that the process is running totally separate from the financial woes experienced by the power utility, saying "this is not the first year of the RCA, we have done a RCA before around 2003 and no one said anything about this corruption we talking about now". 

Energy expert Ted Blom predicted that electricity tariffs could rise by as much as 30%.