{"id":850261,"date":"2026-02-09T09:09:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=850261"},"modified":"2026-02-09T09:16:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:16:01","slug":"businesses-send-an-urgent-letter-to-ramaphosa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/850261\/businesses-send-an-urgent-letter-to-ramaphosa\/","title":{"rendered":"Businesses send an urgent letter to Ramaphosa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) and Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) have written a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa, urging him to clear up confusion around Eskom’s monopoly before investors start fleeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to BLSA CEO Busi Mavuso, the strong electricity reforms that paved the way to ending load shedding in South Africa are at risk of being undone and heading backwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, the government has worked with the businesses to lay out a plan to completely reform South Africa’s electricity sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This plan includes the unbundling of state-owned power utility Eskom into separate, independent generation, distribution, and transmission entities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was codified in the Electricity Regulation Act Amendments, which established the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the Department of Electricity and Energy approved a revised unbundling strategy for Eskom in December 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revised strategy keeps the new NTCSA within Eskom Holdings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means the country\u2019s transmission assets would remain under Eskom\u2019s control, which will leave the Transmission System Operator (TSO) without asset ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Mavuso, Eskom’s unbundling is fundamental to ensuring electricity stability in South Africa, as well as key to introducing much-needed competition to bring prices down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom and the department’s latest move, however, threatens to undermine this and keep the country under the utility’s heel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In our view, Section 34A of the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act is clear that the TSO is meant to be the licensed ‘transmitter’ \u2013 the entity that plans, manages and maintains the transmission power system,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In practice, that requires full control over the transmission system.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CEO said there is no reasonable interpretation of these requirements other than that the TSO must own the grid assets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We believe (this) conflicts with policy. I am pleased the Portfolio Committee on Energy and Electricity has also signalled its concerns and called on Eskom to appear before it again to explain itself,” Mavuso said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She warned that if Eskom continues to own the transmission assets, this will create an obvious conflict of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other generators would find themselves prejudiced for access to the grid on fair terms\u2014and investors, who are needed to pour billions of rands into new infrastructure, will be fully aware of this risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramaphosa must make it clear<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
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Business Leadership South Africa Chief Executive, Busisiwe Mavuso<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Eskom has argued that its obligations to bondholders imply that it must continue to own these assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Mavuso\u2014who had previously served on the Eskom board\u2014said this is not true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Bondholders are used to restructurings across the world that ensure state-owned entities adapt to the market realities they face,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There are many ways to achieve the necessary outcomes without prejudicing bondholders. The same bondholders stand ready to back new grid infrastructure if the planned restructuring is delivered.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added that there is ample scope to negotiate this, and Eskom\u2019s view to the contrary is incorrect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said there was a clear, coherent plan in place, developed through extensive negotiations among various partners, including Ramaphosa’s Operation Vulindlela, to ensure progress in electricity reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Company surveys among its members have shown a massive positive shift in the wider business environment in South Africa, primarily driven by these reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is now being undermined, and is putting over R440 billion of necessary investment at risk.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This casts a dark cloud over the future of electricity reforms. Grid investment is essential, and it must happen as fast as possible in line with the Transmission Development Plan,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The electricity stability we\u2019ve enjoyed for the last 18 months will become more fragile, and either we will end up with more load shedding, or we\u2019ll strangle economic growth by killing off investment, or both.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said the letter from businesses to the president expresses these concerns and urges him to set the record straight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We think it is important that the president, as the ultimate custodian of policy in the country, makes his position clear,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Billions of rands of investment and the economic growth and job creation that would follow depend on it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Business groups have written a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa, urging him to clear up confusion around Eskom’s monopoly before investors start fleeing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":838914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15351,24701,1164,12501],"class_list":["post-850261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-blsa","tag-buso","tag-eskom","tag-ramaphosa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850261","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=850261"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850274,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850261\/revisions\/850274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}