ANC wants to boost private investment at Eskom, FF Plus calls for its privatisation

ANC national treasurer Paul Mashatile says the governing party wants greater private investment in Eskom, eNCA reports.

It is reported Mashatile added the ANC was having talks about splitting up the state-owned power utility’s operations.

Releasing its annual results for the year ended March 2018, Eskom announced on Monday that it suffered a net loss of R2.3 billion.

The company further revealed there was some R19.6 billion worth of irregular expenditure, which dates back as far as 2012, and that it was heavily indebted to the tune of more than R360 billion and has to borrow money to pay off its debt instalments.

The cash-strapped power utility signed a $2.5 billion (about R33 billion) term facility agreement with the China Development Bank on Tuesday. The loan agreement was seen as a bid to plug the holes in the company’s balance sheet.

The Democratic Alliance on Wednesday called on Eskom to make public the terms of its R33.4-billion loan from the China Development Bank.

Meanwhile, minority party Freedom front Plus (FF Plus) said in a statement on Monday that the only way to save Eskom was to partially or completely privatise the entity.

“Seen in the light of auditors’ misgivings about whether Eskom can continue as a going concern, there is only one way to save Eskom and that is through privatisation, be it partially or completely,” the party’s Advocate Anton Alberts said.

The right-wing party said it had cautioned the power utility against urging customers to not make use of its product during loadshedding because this would lower power sales, threatening the company’s sustainability, ultimately leading to Eskom losing its customers for good.

FF Plus further said consumers had made alternative means of generating power, which shrunk the entity’s market.

“Furthermore, Eskom’s irregular expenditure, which amounts to R19.6 million, is nearly as much as the amount of money that the National Treasury aims to collect with the 1% VAT increase. That is all the more reason for the government not to offer Eskom a financial bailout, but rather to allow the state-owned enterprise to seek private investors,” Alberts said.

The party said the government should desist from using taxpayers’ money to bail the power utility.

“Hard lessons will be learned if Eskom is not privatised and responsibly managed.”

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