BL Premium reports that power utility Eskom has pushed out the time frame for its unbundling by at least two years and no longer has a firm target date for the full legal establishment of the three subsidiaries the process will create.
The splitting up of the state-owned company into three parts — generation transmission and distribution — is seen as crucial to overcoming its operational and financial difficulties. Last October, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan published a roadmap for Eskom, setting out timelines for the split. It envisaged that the most urgent project — a separate transmission company to act as operator of the grid and a market buyer — would be set up as a division by December 2020 and be fully legally separate by December 2021. That timeline has been pushed out to 2022 with no firm target date for legal separation. The divisionalisation of the generation and distribution parts of the business will now happen by 2022 and the legal separation later. The new timelines were presented to MPs by CEO Andre de Ruyter. He said that the timelines in the roadmap were "quite aggressive" and in consultation with the board and the shareholder, Eskom had targeted some "slightly relaxed" timelines. Progress made so far includes the allocation of 9,000 staff to divisions, the appointment of managing directors from existing staff for each division and the boards and the separation of income statements.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Carol Paton at BusinessLive
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