{"id":175437,"date":"2017-05-16T16:21:59","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T14:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=175437"},"modified":"2017-05-16T16:35:40","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T14:35:40","slug":"eskom-warns-of-winter-power-cuts-unless-treasury-signs-new-coal-deals-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/175437\/eskom-warns-of-winter-power-cuts-unless-treasury-signs-new-coal-deals-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Eskom warns of winter power cuts &#8211; unless Treasury signs new coal deals: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom chairman Ben Ngubane has warned that South Africans can expect power cuts\u00a0this winter\u00a0unless the National Treasury urgently signs purchase agreements so Eskom can build up its coal reserves, according to a report by <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/local\/2017\/05\/16\/Ngubane-warns-of-power-cuts-unless-Treasury-signs-Eskom-coal-deals1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">TimesLive<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at the sidelines of \u00a0African Utility Week conference at the Cape Town International Convention Centre,\u00a0Ngubane noted that the power provider had no problems over the past two winters as Treasury funding had ensured\u00a0sufficient coal was brought in and that stocks built up the stocks to more than a million tons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow we have a problem because Treasury has not yet signed our coal purchase agreements and we are in winter\u201a and the winter is getting bitter, said Ngubane.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People are using electricity like crazy &#8230; We need to have enough stock of coal in view of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He further gave credit for the uninterrupted electricity supply to newly reinstated Eskom CEO Brian Molefe\u201a who on his second day back in the hot seat skipped the event due to other \u201curgent matters\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Reports point to Molefe missing the start of the conference after\u00a0investigative\u00a0group,<a href=\"http:\/\/amabhungane.co.za\/article\/2017-05-16-exclusive-how-brian-molefe-helped-gupta-optimum-heist\"><strong> amaBhungane<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0implicated him in a plan to help the controversial Gupta family &#8220;hijack&#8221;\u00a0the Optimum Coal mine operation from Glencore.<\/p>\n<p>Former mining minister, Ngoako Ramatlhodi made damning allegations against Molefe, Ngubane and president Jacob Zuma, telling amaBhungane that he was fired\u00a0from the department when he would not go along with a plan to blackmail former Optimum owners, Glencore.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/175271\/damning-report-links-molefe-to-gupta-mine-hijack\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Damning report links Molefe to Gupta mine \u2018hijack\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom chairman Ben Ngubane has warned that South Africans can expect power cuts this winter unless the National Treasury urgently signs purchase agreements so Eskom can build up its coal reserves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":74888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-175437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175437"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175447,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175437\/revisions\/175447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}