SOUTH Africa’s cash-strapped power utility Eskom has asked the National Treasury for R19.5 billion to buy diesel to fuel auxiliary power plants, a request that’s unlikely to be heeded, said Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.
“We don’t have it,” Godongwana said in an interview at Bloomberg’s office in Johannesburg.
Africa’s most-industrialised economy has been subjected to record power outages this year, mainly due to breakdowns at Eskom’s poorly maintained coal-fired plants that account for over 80% of South Africa’s power supply. The utility has been forced to use turbines that run on diesel, intended for bolster generation during peak-demand periods, to mitigate blackouts that have curbed economic growth.
Eskom has spent R11 billion on the fuel in the 10 months through October and warned last month that electricity outages, known locally as load shedding, may intensify if it runs out of funds to buy the fuel. The state-owned company has imposed
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