Deputy President David Mabuza says cost saving is key to Eskom\u2019s turnaround strategy and the power utility aims to save R55.6 billion over the next three years. <\/p>\n
He said this when he fielded oral questions in the National Assembly on Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cCost savings remain a key aspect of the financial turnaround plan. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe 2020\/21 corporate plan outlines a cost savings target of R55.6 billion over a three-year period, from financial year 2021 to financial year 2023. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe cost saving target for financial year 2021 is R14.1 billion.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mabuza said even with government support, Eskom\u2019s liquidity remains constrained due to poor long-term financial sustainability. <\/p>\n
Government\u2019s equity support is assisting Eskom in servicing its debt commitments. He said, however, that equity support only improves liquidity, but will not resolve Eskom\u2019s financial viability. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the implementation of timelines envisaged in the Department of Public Enterprises\u2019 roadmap, Eskom has reported that the timelines for Transmission can be met, although the legal separation of Generation and Distribution will take somewhat longer. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis delay is due to legal and regulatory changes, which are beyond Eskom\u2019s control.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mabuza said Eskom has also decided to accelerate the legal separation of Transmission, which will create the required certainty for prospective investors in generation capacity, in turn ensuring that bids are fairly adjudicated, relative to Eskom generation. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe end state of the process is to ensure that all three divisions will be able to operate as standalone and financially viable businesses. This will further ensure that Eskom is able to mitigate the risks to debt and lender security, as well as asset base. In view of this, we are comfortable with the progress towards achieving the milestones envisaged in the roadmap.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Deputy President said, meanwhile, that while Eskom is improving its revenue and debt collection measures to fund its operations and ensure that electricity is supplied on a sustainable basis, rising municipal debt continues to pose a serious risk to Eskom\u2019s long-term financial sustainability. <\/p>\n
The debt also significantly contributes to the liquidity challenges facing the entity. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe therefore fully support Eskom\u2019s efforts to collect revenue by following its credit control measures, and we reiterate our commitment made in both Houses of Parliament, to ensure that organs of State do expedite payment of outstanding debts owed to Eskom, and that they settle all outstanding debts to municipalities.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mabuza said the Eskom Political Task Team is also in the process of finalising an effective institutional mechanism to deal with debt verification processes, and resolve disputes where there are disagreements on the debt amounts owed. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis will culminate in the appointment of facilitators to oversee this process. <\/p>\n
\u201cMore importantly, we have a responsibility to improve a culture of payment for services such as electricity and water by our communities to avoid unnecessary disruptions in the provision of <\/strong>these services.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are in the process of rolling out a comprehensive campaign to raise awareness and encourage communities to pay for electricity and other services that they consume. This is the right thing to do. <\/p>\n \u201cWe make this clarion call on all our communities to pay for electricity to enable Eskom and municipalities to provide services on a continuous and sustainable basis.\u201d \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Deputy President David Mabuza says cost saving is key to Eskom\u2019s turnaround strategy and the power utility aims to save R55.6 billion over the next three years. He said this when he fielded oral questions in the National Assembly on Thursday. \u201cCost savings remain a key aspect of the financial turnaround plan. \u201cThe 2020\/21 corporate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-173432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}