Higher tariffs or power cuts – you choose: Eskom
South Africans can choose between the pain of higher electricity prices to pay for Eskom’s diesel, or power cuts and damage to the economy.
Acting Eskom CEO Brian Molefe argued on Wednesday that the pain of people paying more was far less than the damage power cuts would cause to the economy.
“If we don’t have the diesel, then we go into load shedding sooner and it will be more severe,” he said following a briefing on the state of the country’s power system.
The power utility was spending about R1.5 billion a month on diesel to power its open cycle gas turbines, and needed billions more to keep them running.
Included in its latest request to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa for a 24.7% electricity tariff hike was the need for R10.9 billion to buy diesel for the gas turbines. The diesel purchases made up 6.4% of the proposed 24.7% increase.
Running the open-cycle gas turbines added 2000MW to the grid and without it the country would get into stage 2 load shedding, he said.
The 24.7% also included a 4.7% clawback.
“It’s money that should have been given to us in the previous year,” he said. He criticised analysts for their “unwelcome utterances in the media” in not pointing this out.
Read: Eskom doesn’t need a massive price hike: CEO
Meanwhile, Molefe is awaiting further instruction from government on if his tenure will be extended beyond July, Fin24 reported on Wednesday.
“I serve at Eskom at the pleasure of the board and the minister [of public enterprises] and I await further instruction,” he said.
Molefe was appointed Transnet CEO in 2011 and seconded to Eskom in April this year.
Acting Eskom chairperson Ben Ngubane referred to Molefe as the “very successful CEO of Transnet” and said the length of his tenure at Eskom was an “open discussion”.
“We are aware that his time is coming to an end, so probably these discussions will start soon,” he said.
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