South Africa is urgently seeking funds to finance the purchase of diesel, which is used to mitigate recurrent power cuts linked to dilapidated coal-fired power stations, while its fuel reserves are low, we have learned. Monday.
If no budget is allocated in this direction, the cuts will continue or even worsen, between two to four times several hours a day, for businesses and individuals until April, warned energy experts.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan met with the board of state-owned energy company Eskom on Sunday evening over the “serious concerns”.
“The ministry is working urgently with the National Treasury and Eskom to find the money needed to buy diesel,” said a government statement.
Eskom said on Monday it had no more money to replenish diesel reserves for the financial year ending March 31, 2023, raising the specter of months of severe blackouts. “The little stock we have is carefully kept for cases of extreme urgency,” spokesman Sikonathi Mantshantsha told AFP.
Outages, already regular, have reached new heights this year, forcing Eskom to burn more diesel than it can afford to make up for supply shortages, according to Jan Oberholzer, its chief operating officer.
“We’ve run out of money to burn diesel,” he told reporters last week, explaining that the company had already spent more than $690 million on fuel this year.
Some municipalities do not pay for the electricity they use, which adds to the company’s financial difficulties, he added. Eskom is crumbling under a debt of 22 billion dollars, half of which the government has pledged to take over.
Power cuts are planned and the time slots distributed according to the districts. Bad news most often comes via mobile phone, thanks to a specially dedicated application. In the privileged corners then engages the hum of the generators, while immense poor zones of the country remain in the darkness.