Breaking up is hard to do for Eskom

Having seemingly lost the battle to keep the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) and its grid assets within Eskom after pressure from lenders and business, the power utility has turned its focus to stitching together a sound financial plan for separation acceptable to key stakeholders. Business Times can today report that Eskom is looking to hire consultants to assess the funding implications and credit considerations the move to separate the NTSCA will have on the group — which is expected to shell out more than R300bn in capital expenditure by 2030.

The move to do a deep-dive financial impact assessment comes four months after President Cyril Ramaphosa discarded the utility’s revised unbundling strategy that would have seen it establish a fully independent transmission system operator while retaining transmission assets within the company. The plan, which was approved by the minister of electricity & energy, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, failed to find favour with the president after an uproar led by the business community.