Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has denied reports that the National Treasury’s plan to take over a portion of Eskom’s debt will be linked to conditions that the power utility builds new coal, gas and nuclear plants.
“Minister Godongwana’s point was that South Africa’s energy transition will not be an immediate and wholesale abandonment of the country’s existing electricity sources, but a phasing-out of fossil fuels that may also involve transitional measures to maintain current coal and nuclear plants, and also the use of transitional sources like gas,” he said.
“Further, his point was that the fundamental purpose of the National Treasury’s plan to take over a portion of Eskom’s debt is to allow the utility to focus on and invest in increasing its generation capacity,” he said. Minister Godongwana was clear about these principles in his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement last Wednesday, he said.