Parliament says no more blank cheques. The National Treasury presented conditions of the Special Appropriation Bill, which allocated R59-billion to Eskom over the next two years.
But there are also many conditions attached, including that Eskom should collect its debts. This bailout will be added to the R69-billion the power utility has already been allocated for the next three years. There are nearly 30 conditions attached to the latest Eskom bailout from National Treasury.
Eskom cannot provide electricity and not collect debt that is owed to them. So in condition 5 we are expecting that Eskom will recover all the sums of electricity sales,” said Chief Director of the Liability Management unit in the National Treasury, Tshepiso Moahloli.
In addressing what it calls the elephant in the room, National Treasury says it also wants details of when Medupi and Kusile power stations will be complete and why there have been costly defects.
When asked where the money for this latest bailout will come from, the answer was taxpayer revenue collected by SARS.
In addition to that, when expenditure exceeds revenue, we do borrow from the markets. We borrow from the local markets, we also borrow from the international capital market,” Moahloli said. Eskom has also been told to appoint a permanent CEO within a month of finalising this latest bailout.
In other news – ANC activist Priscilla Nombewu dies at 89
She marched against the oppression of women in 1956, a protest which popularized the phrase: “You strike a woman, you strike a rock.
The ANC’s Priscilla Nombewu passed away at age 89 last week at the 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria. Read more
Source: eNCA
