Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 14-02-2019
The Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises says South Africa is in a state of absolute crisis after it emerged that Eskom is technically insolvent and will fail to exist without a government bailout.
On Wednesday Parliament’s Public Enterprises Portfolio Committee heard Eskom’s debt is now standing at R 420 billion and it won’t be able to keep the lights on beyond April if it continues on its current trajectory.
Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa during the State of the Nation Address (Sona) said the entity would be unbundled into three separate entities.
The DA’s Natasha Mazzone says the Eskom situation is dire and if the lights go out, the country will be plunged into the biggest crisis it has ever faced.
“We are in a state of absolute crisis. What we have now is a situation where a giant monopoly has the ability to hold our entire country to ransom, because it’s almost being like in a kidnapped situation. You will do and pay anything to get out of that particular situation and that’s where the country now finds itself.”
Mazzone says government will have to scrounge at least a hundred billion Rand from other services to bail out Eskom, as there is no money in the fiscus to assist the power utility.
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