Power crisis to be tackled through R23bn bailout for Eskom

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma announced last night that government has yielded to crisis-hit Eskom ’ s pleas for a R23-billion bailout.

Zuma said the funds would be made available to the troubled utility in the next financial year to assist it to deal with the current electricity crisis.

Zuma spoke frankly about the electricity problem and did not point fingers at the apartheid government when he urged citizens to save electricity to avoid load shedding – which has affected most parts of the country in the past few weeks.

Yesterday the company said it needed to raise tariffs in order to fix its financial situation.

Eskom is currently spending more than R1-billion a month burn- ing diesel to keep the lights on.

Zuma annnounced that Eskom has been ordered to switch from diesel to gas as a source of energy in order to cut costs.

An unshaken Zuma – who had earlier been disrupted by Economic Freedom Fighters ’ MPs – said the energy crisis was one of the factors that threatened the government ’ s target of reaching a 5% economy growth rate.

“The country is currently experiencing serious energy constrains which are an impediment to economic growth and is a major inconvinience to everyone in the country.

“Overcoming the challenging is uppermost in our programme. We are doing everything we can to resolve this challenge.

“The government is doing everything possible to deal with the energy crisis.”

Zuma committed to improving the maintenance of Eskom power stations, enhancing energy generation and managing electricity demand as part of his sort term solutions.

As a long term solution, Zuma said government would encourage the use of other energy sources such as gas, hydro-power, petroleum and other sources.