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S. African power utility to commission independent enquiry on current status

Xinhua, March 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

South Africa's power utility Eskom announced on Thursday that it has resolved to commission an independent enquiry on the current status of the business and its challenges at a time when power supply continues to be constrained.

The Eskom Board, in its quest to address the current challenges faced by Eskom, has deemed it prudent to seek an independent view on the current status, the parastatal said.

These include the poor performance of generation plant, delays in bringing the new generation plant on-stream, high costs of primary energy and cash flow challenges

"To ensure that this process is as transparent and uninhibited as possible, the Board has also resolved that four of its senior executives, including the Chief Executive, should step down for the duration of this enquiry," said Eskom Chairman Zola Tsotsi.

The other executives who have been asked to step down while the enquiry is underway are Finance Director Tsholofelo Molefe, Group Capital Director Dan Marokane and Commercial and Technology Director Matshela Koko.

The Board also resolved that the independent enquiry be conducted by external parties, who will be selected within the next week. They will be given unfettered rights of access to all information deemed necessary for this probe to be successful.

The Board emphasized that this process is a critical step towards ensuring that the situation facing Eskom improves as expeditiously as possible.

"To that end, we would like to assure our customers and employees that this was done in the best interest of all our stakeholders, and we hope to come out of this with a better grasp of all the challenges facing the business, and most importantly, with solutions," Tsotsi added.

Eskom, which provides about 95 percent of South Africa's electricity, has implemented a series of rolling blackouts since November last year when some of its coal-burning power stations broke down due to poor maintenance.

This forced the utility to burn diesel to the value of 1 billion rand (about 82 million U.S. dollars) a month to keep the lights on.

The electricity shortage is expected to last for the coming three years, Eskom said earlier.

The government has earmarked 23 billion rand (about 1.9 billion dollars) to bail out the cash-strapped utility. Endi