President Cyril Ramaphosa reiterated at an investment conference in Johannesburg on Wednesday that struggling power utility Eskom would not be privatised, adding it was “too big to fail”.
Ramaphosa was delivering his first major post-election economic address at a conference hosted by the Goldman Sachs Group.
Ahead of the elections some had warned that plans to split the power utility into three may pave the way for parts of it to be sold off to the private sector.
“We are not privatising Eskom, we are restructuring Eskom, a process that will allow the private sector to be our partners – our partners in generation (and) our partners already in distribution,” said Ramaphosa.
In March South Africa was forced to repeatedly implement Stage 4 load shedding due to a combination of unplanned plant breakdowns, low diesel reserves, scheduled maintenance and the loss of power due to damaged transmission lined from Mozambique.
You’ve reached your free article limit
Subscribe to enjoy unlimited access to trusted journalism. Cancel anytime.
Subscribe nowNeed help? molokom@insidepolitic.co.za
