Eskom Chief Executive Officer, Andre de Ruyter, has told Parliament that they are doing a lot of maintenance to mitigate the risk of load shedding next year. De Ruyter and other executives from the power utility briefed Parliament on their annual performance on Wednesday.

“We are doing a lot of maintenance and this will have a significant, positive impact on the risk of load shedding by April of next year and then by September next year we think that there will be a significant reduction to the risk of load shedding going forward.”

De Ruyter has told Parliament that the power utility has made an operating profit of R9.2 billion, but that after paying debt costs, they showed a loss of R20.5 billion.

He says liquidity remains a challenge at the power utility and they are still dependent on equity support from the government.

Delivering his Mid Term Budget Speech last month, Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni allocated R23 billion to Eskom. He emphasized the need for improving the supply of electricity.

“In line with our plan, there is progress in allowing municipalities to buy electricity from different sources. In addition, the way has been opened for the procurement of almost 12000 MW of new electricity capacity to be provided by independent power producers.”

He said that the implementation of the Eskom Roadmap and unbundling will continue.

Minister Tito Mboweni delivers the Medium Term Budget: