- This week in a parliamentary reply, South Africa’s Public Enterprises Minister, Mr Pravin Gordhan reported that Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique collectively owe Eskom R632 million.
- Minister Gordhan was responding to a question posed by an opposition party, the Democratic Alliance.
Mr Gordhan explained that Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa Holdings) owes Eskom R322m, Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) owes R221m and Zambian state-owned power company Zesco owes R89m.
“Half a billion rands is an astonishing amount of money and could, in the long term, go a long way in stabilising the financial woes at Eskom,” said DA chief whip Natasha Mazzone.
“As such, the DA has written to minister Gordhan to request that he makes public the payment plans that Eskom has with these foreign governments which owe the utility millions in unpaid debt,” she said.
She said in addition to the R632m owed by these foreign power utilities, Eskom was also owed close to R20bn in outstanding debt by municipalities across South Africa.
Eskom recently resumed 450MW supply to Zimbabwe. China recently stopped refurbishment of the Hwange Power station in Zimbabwe over a corrupt raid by Zimbabwean government officials on their bank account. Read more
Zambia has recently been trying to secure an additional 300MW supply from Eskom. Read more
Eskom is swimming in a pool of debt amounting to around R480 billion. The debt, largely caused by gross mismanagement, corruption and malfeasance, cannot be serviced and requires regular government bailouts. Ratings agency, Moody’s, recently implemented further downgrades on Eskom – with a negative outlook. Read more.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
