[miningmx.com] – THE African National Congress, South Africa’s ruling party, has decided not to restructure the country’s electricity sector by abandoning a bill that would have split up Eskom, the state-owned power utility.
BDLive quoted head of the ANC’s economic transformation committee, Enoch Godongwana, as saying that splitting up Eskom would weaken its balance sheet at a time when it needed to raise additional debt.
The ANC decided not to reintroduce the Independent System Market Operator Bill to parliament which would have created a state company to buy and sell electricity in competition with the private sector.
“There has been an ongoing debate over the structure of the industry,” Godongwana told BDLive. “One view has been to establish an independent system market operator and a liberalised market,” he said.
“Another school of thought has argued that historically where this is done, the state is generally not the dominant power producer,” he said. “It also makes no sense to weaken Eskom now. This view wants Eskom to remain at the centre of industry.”
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