Western Cape Premier Alan Winde says National Treasury’s decision to exempt Eskom from disclosing its irregular and fruitless expenditure for the next three years is concerning.
There has been widespread shock from energy experts following the release of national government’s gazette on Friday, which gives Eskom a blanket exemption from the Public Finance Management Act.
Winde says the Western Cape government is considering taking action to compel Eskom to disclose all of it’s figures.
“We’ve got to make sure that we are keeping the lights on and what this does, it looks like we are giving Eskom the financial loopholes in which to continue with the systems that have broken down over time,” says Winde.
VIDEO | OUTA reacts to Eskom’s PFMA exemption:
CSIR energy expert Monique Le Roux says the move seems to be an attempt to put Eskom in a position to get better debt relief and additional loans.
“There has been further clarification made by treasury over the weekend saying Eskom will still have to report of their fruitless and wasteful expenditure on their reports. It seems from the clarification that Eskom and treasury are just using this example to obtain better debt relief and additional loans for Eskom – something that they desperately need given the fact that they have a huge debt burden and government agreed to take on half of that debt.”
Meanwhile, Eskom has implemented Stage 3 loadshedding from 5 o’clock this morning. It will then escalate to Stage 4 from 4 o’clock this afternoon until 5 o’clock tomorrow morning.
This pattern will be repeated daily until further notice.
The power utility attributes this to breakdowns amounting to 15 148 Megawatts of generating capacity.
Eskom says over the past 24 hours, four generation units were returned to service at Kriel, Matimba, Matla and Tutuka power stations.
In the same period, a generating unit each at Duvha, Hendrina and Kriel power stations were taken offline for repairs.
