By Ana Monteiro and Enzokuhle Sabela.
South Africa is on track to set up an independent power-transmission company, President Cyril Ramaphosa said, countering assertions that the state is revising the plan.
The government is restructuring state-owned power utility Eskom. And establishing a fully independent state owned transmission entity, as I have said before,” he told lawmakers in his state of the nations speech in Cape Town.
“This entity will have ownership and control of transmission assets and be responsible for operating the electricity market.”
In a statement in December, the utility said Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa had approved a “revised unbundling strategy” that would still split Eskom into distribution, generation, renewable energy and transmission units under a single holding company.
It would also see ownership of the grid remain with Eskom, rather than being transferred to an independent transmission system operator.
The statement contrasted with earlier plans to separate the company into three stand-alone units, as Ramaphosa proposed in 2019, to create a more competitive electricity market and make it easier to manage the divisions and their debt.
Analysts had said the revised strategy may jeopardise further implementation of the multi-billion-dollar Just Energy Transition Partnership, a programme backed by European countries to help South Africa reduce its reliance on coal-fired power.
Ramaphosa said he has started a so-called task team under the national energy-crisis committee “to address the various issues relating to the restructuring process, including clear time frames for its phase implementation.”