Treasury 'on track' to clear Eskom debt, insists Godongwana
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana says government remains committed to taking over Eskom's debt to ensure the utility is able to restore its coal-fired power stations.
The recommitment by the government comes as South Africans have been subjected to daily blackouts since last year as Eskom struggles to generate enough capacity to provide electricity for all South Africans.
The country is currently on continuous stage 6 load shedding.
Godongwana addressed the pre-World Economic Forum business breakfast on Thursday morning, ahead of his trip to Davos.
He told the breakfast that the details of the debt relief package for Eskom will be announced in the February budget speech.
The struggling power utility has managed to reduce its debt and loan accounts from R401.8 billion in 2021 to R396.3 billion in the latest financial year.
Godognwana said the government will continue to support Eskom, to ensure it focuses on restoring the coal-fired power stations.
"A lot of work is being done, there is no doubt about that. We want to resolve the Eskom issue as soon as possible, part of that resolution is to make sure that they have a healthy balance sheet so that they should be able to do what they should do best, in my view, they should prioritise sorting what they have, not looking for what they don't have, in making sure that the 48000 MW, at least 32000 MW are working, just something to sort this out.
“That is why it is critical for us to clear that balance sheet, we will make the appropriate announcement on the 22nd of February.”
Godongwana said the National Energy Regulator of South Africa's decision on Eskom's tariff increase application will determine how much of the debt government has to take over.
"We said during the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement that there are a lot of variables that we must take into account when we take that debt, amongst those variables is what Nersa is going to announce today (Thursday), when Nersa announce the tariffs it will then explain to us Eskom's cashflows moving forward and what are the implications, and that will also explain the quantum of the debt we need to take.”
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