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“I expressed my concern to a senior government minister about attempts, in my view, to water down governance about the $8.5bn that, by and large, through Eskom’s intervention, we got at COP26, and the response was essentially ‘you have to be pragmatic. To pursue the greater good, you have to enable some people to eat a little bit.’ So, yes, it is, I think, entrenched.”
Godongwana said: “In the criminal syndicates in Eskom, the CEO of Eskom is economic with the truth. When he raised these matters with the government, particularly in Mpumalanga, and an investigation found syndicates, the government set up a task team comprising law enforcement agencies and arrested a number of people as a result. So I find it difficult to take that.”
He said the R254bn debt relief that his budget proposes for Eskom will be met strict conditions.
“We have appointed a team which is going to do an assessment of Eskom’s operations from companies across the globe. To give us a better understanding, they will go from operation to operation across Eskom.”
The minister said the decision to provide debt relief was informed by Eskom’s need to resolve challenges related to power generation capacity, plant maintenance, and plant performance while the fiscus tackles the entity’s crippling debt.
“We need to clear Eskom’s balance sheet so that Eskom is able to do what they are supposed to do properly. In any event, many institutions have pencilled Eskom’s debt in as our debt, because it is guaranteed. So, we had to do that,” he said.
Godongwana said Eskom should be given the room to recover at a financial and operational level so it could address weaknesses in power transmission and power distribution.
Minister of public enterprises Pravin Gordhan also criticised De Ruyter’s allegations, accusing him of meddling in politics.
TimesLIVE
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