- A government gazette issued on 31st March 2023 by South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, provides Eskom with an exemption from Section 55 (2) (b) (i) of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) for 2022/23 and the following two years from disclosing irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure in its annual financial statements.
- The gazette also exempts Eskom from disclosing same to Treasury.
News24 reports that Treasury has issued the gazette in response to a request made by the new Eskom Board Chairperson, Mr Mpho Makwana which is not an attempt to evade transparency, but arose from technical accounting issues around debt covenants between lenders and state-owned entities. Irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure are evidently not accounting terms.
No official statement has been issued by Eskom or Treasury providing an explanation on the decision.
This an unfolding story.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
