Energy adviser sticks to his guns

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma’s energy adviser, Silas Zimu, is digging in his heels over his comments about Eskom, despite the president having distanced himself from him.

Zimu was blasted by Zuma’s office for reportedly saying at the Windaba energy conference in Cape Town that Eskom was “going down and under, very very fast”.

He told Independent Media that the power utility was losing many industrial and commercial customers, who contribute about 60% of its revenue.

“Currently, a lot of these customers are going off grid through solar panels,” Zimu said.

He warned that if this trend continued, Eskom would not be the same in 10 years’ time. “This trend will make Eskom go down very fast,” Zimu said.

He said he made the statement in his personal capacity.

On Sunday, Zuma’s spokesperson Dr Bongani Ngqulunga said the utterances were Zimu’s personal views and did not represent the views of Zuma, the Presidency or the government.

The former City Power boss, who was appointed by Zuma in June 2015, reportedly warned conference delegates that: “What happened at the SABC portfolio is coming to Eskom. I personally believe that we’re not going to have the same Eskom we had 10 years ago”.

Last week, Eskom admitted it was facing “liquidity challenges” but said its “2.2% tariff increase for the 2017/18 financial year will present challenges to the company’s liquidity position for the current financial year”.

It said it was forced to undertake certain financial commitments to ensure sufficient liquidity in line with its funding requirements and managed to save R47 billion realised between 2012 and this year.

Eskom said it has adopted an aggressive sales-volume growth to support economic growth by encouraging increased local and crossborder sales.

The power utility noted it had secured about 56% of its funding requirements for the current financial year.