Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) and Eskom, which have recently expressed public disagreement over the nature of the unbundling of the State-owned utility, have issued a joint statement in support of creating a Transmission System Operator (TSO) with the grid assets, while committing to engage over differences regarding implementation.
The two organisations have been at loggerheads over Eskom’s reticence regarding a government-endorsed reform to create a separate State-owned TSO outside of Eskom, with grid assets valued at some R110-billion.
This vision was endorsed in a Phase 1 report by the Eskom Restructuring Task Team set up following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address, in which he directly contradicted an Eskom plan to create a TSO to operate the transmission system and market, but where the grid assets would remain under the ownership of an Eskom Holdings subsidiary.
Since the President’s subsequent endorsement of the Phase 1 report, BLSA reiterated its position that the creation of a separate entity, with the grid assets, was essential for levelling the playing field in an evolving competitive electricity market.
However, Eskom, mostly through its chairperson Mteto Nyati, continued to raise the risks of such a transfer for Eskom and its bondholders and persisted with the view that the TSO should be established initially without those assets.
