Page 11 - AfrElec Week 21

AfrElec
NEWS IN BRIEF
AfrElec
POLICY
Municipalities owe Eskom ZARR30bn
Municipal debt to Eskom is approaching ZAR30bn, up more than ZAR8bn in the last 12 months, acting DG Kgothatso Tlhakudi told parliament on May 27 This is according to figures presented to parliament’s standing committee on appropriations on Wednesday night by Kgothatso Tlhakudi, acting director- general of public enterprises, as well senior officials from the National Treasury.
Tlhakudi also told MPs that the state-owed power utility was meeting a majority of the conditions attached to the multibillion-rand financial support it was receiving from the national government for the 2020/2021 financial year.
Tlhakudi said the one outstanding condition Eskom was yet to meet was the disposal of the Eskom Finance Company (EFC), which provides financial services to the company’s employees.
The government wants EFC disposed of from Eskom’s business model as part of the unbundling of the utility, arguing that it is non-core to the mandate of the electricity
generator. POLICY
Tlhakudi said due to the current state of the economy, which has been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, the financial markets and other industry players have shown little appetite towards EFC.
The acting DG of public enterprises said despite Eskom making several concessions
on its municipal debt recovery strategy, there had been no “material change” in the payment behaviour of municipalities.
“The municipal debt remains a big challenge for the business. The arrear debt is sitting at about ZAR28bn at the end of the last financial year [March 2020], having increased from ZAR19bn.
“Despite certain concessions that Eskom has made to municipalities, the situation is not improving. There are measures that Eskom has put together to try and reduce the burden on municipalities, including placing the debt in a suspense account,” said Tlhakudi.
“The concessions cover the interest rate that have been reduced to lessen the burden on municipalities, there’s extended payment terms that have been agreed and also payments are also been allocated to capital to try and reduce the burden. Unfortunately these measures are not having the desired effects.”
Rwanda unveils $11bn climate action plan
Rwanda has become the first African country to submit a new national climate plan,
whose implementation requires $11bn, as
an essential tool to implement the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, aims to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius with an ambition to contain any increase at below 1.5 degrees.
he updated pledges to fight climate change are being submitted ahead of COP-26.
The 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was planned to take place from 9-19 November 2020, in Glasgow, UK but it has been postponed to 2021.
According to the submitted new climate plan to fight climate change through 2030, the total estimated cost for mitigation measures
is estimated at around $5.7bn, and over $5.3bn for adaptation priorities, representing a combined funding requirement of around $11bn.
Week 21 28•May•2020
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