Engineering News reports that Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan says a draft White Paper outlining government’s approach to the unbundling of state-owned power utility Eskom, as well as how its “unsustainable” debt burden will be managed, is being prepared and should be finalised within weeks.
He made the remarks ahead of his Budget Vote address in Parliament and also said the paper would outline SA’s future energy environment, as well as the envisaged financial arrangements for Eskom. It would furthermore address the utility’s indebtedness and its restructuring, as well as identify cost-saving opportunities in the areas of coal, staffing and capital efficiency. In February, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that Eskom would be broken into three separate state-owned entities of generation, transmission and distribution. Later, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni made a proposed R23-billion a year fiscal injection into Eskom, over ten years, conditional on the restructuring and said that a chief restructuring officer (CRO) would be appointed to oversee the process. Gordhan described the appointment of the CRO as a priority and said that the appointment “will be announced shortly”.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Engineering News
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