Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busisiwe Mavuso has called for policy follow-through to ensure that the restructuring under way in the electricity industry facilitates a transition to a market that is genuinely competitive and “not reform in name only”.
Writing in her weekly newsletter, Mavuso homed in on the importance that organised business was attaching to the creation of an independent transmission system operator (TSO), which also owned the grid assets, for the emergence of a competitive market.
The unbundling of Eskom was not straightforward, Mavuso wrote, acknowledging that lenders needed the assurance that restructuring would not undermine their creditor rights.
“But utility restructurings of this kind have been achieved successfully elsewhere in the world. Where there is genuine will, a way can be found.”
The BLSA intervention comes ahead of an end-of-June deadline set by President Cyril Ramaphosa for the Eskom Restructuring Task Team to finalise the unbundling approach and implementation plan for the creation of a TSO. The initial deadline of the end of May was not met.
