South Africa’s power utility Eskom on Sunday said it has run out of cash to buy diesel for its critical plants, and does not plan to order any more until 1 April 2023, reported The BBC. The consequence of this will be that people will have to experience rolling blackouts of up to six hours a day.
In a statement, South Africa’s Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said that his department would be working with the national treasury to arrange for money to buy diesel.
Mr Gordhan had a meeting with the Eskom board members on Sunday night and called for measures to create more reliability in power supply.
“The department of public enterprises (DPE) is urgently working with National Treasury and Eskom for it to find the money to buy supplies of diesel,” the department said in a statement.
The ministry said was also holding talks with Eskom to arrange for savings within the power utility’s existing funds for the ongoing purchase of diesel and maintenance.
Eskom currently has a debt of $26bn and has many old and inefficient power stations that require constant maintenance to keep them running.
Last month, South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced a bailout for the power utility in the 2022 Medium Term Budget Policy.
South Africa’s power utility company has already announced that Stage 5 load shedding was on the cards for this week.
Last week, Eskom’s Chief Operating Officer Jan Oberholzer said that, the company has spent R12 billion on diesel since April against an initial budget of R6.1 billion, which was later revised to R11.1 billion.
“If we continue to burn diesel the way we have for the past seven months, the cost would be astronomical. But we do not have the cash to spend,” Oberholzer said at the time.
He said the company would be able to pay if the municipalities pay their dues on time.
