The Department of Public Enterprises is constantly monitoring Eskom to provide support to ensure the parastatal overcomes its national problems.
This was the assurance DPE Minister Pravin Gordhan gave to business leaders at the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s annual gala dinner on Tuesday.
“At the forefront of your minds is – is this minister and his colleagues sleeping at national level or do we have a plan and are we doing everything possible to implement the plan? The plan was announced on 25 July and there is a crisis committee with many ministers, chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa, which is at work,” Gordhan told guests, during his keynote address via a live online feed.
“Unfortunately, it won’t be resolved overnight but certainly over the next 18 months, the task is to ensure it is performing better than it is now. Eskom is under constant monitoring by ourselves at national government level, to support Eskom to ensure it overcomes its national problems – to ensure better maintenance services, that better coal is delivered and that theft of fuel and oil is limited and doesn’t add to costs,” said Gordhan.
He said Eskom had been granted “space and consent” to purchase “as many megawatts as it can find in the hands of the private sector in the SADC region”.
He said “everything possible” was being done to stabilise the power situation and said new skills were being acquired to manage power stations and to improve performance.
Gordhan said Ramaphosa was also leading the process to restructure SOEs to implement the Zondo Commission’s recommendations so that people “of the right integrity and capability” were placed on their boards to minimise political interference.
He added that Transnet’s R100 billion redevelopment of the Ports of Durban and Richards Bay were dependent on energy security.
