The BRICS Bank could come to the rescue of Eskom after it indicated to lawmakers it was in discussion on how it can help with the financing to improve the energy security supply in South Africa.
The director-general for the BRICS Bank African regional centre, Monale Ratsoma, said the institution has pledged $3 billion (R54bn) for the just energy transition in South Africa for the next five years.
However, they are aware of the current challenges facing Eskom.
Ratsoma said on Thursday that they even had a discussion with new BRICS Bank president Dilma Rousseff on how the bank can help Eskom to deal with the immediate availability of electricity.
Rousseff is the former president of Brazil, who was recently appointed to head the New Development Bank (NDB), also known as the BRICS Bank.
Ratsoma said the bank was also working closely with the office of Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa in helping to finance Eskom to provide energy in the country.
The country has been facing power outages over the last few weeks with higher stages of load shedding.
Ramokgopa on Wednesday briefed the Cabinet on the proposals to deal with load shedding in the immediate to medium term.
President Cyril Ramaphosa had convened the special Cabinet meeting for Ramokgopa to detail how the country can get out of the energy crisis.
Ratsoma told members of the National Assembly’s committee on international relations and co-operation on Thursday that they were in discussion with the ministry of electricity in resolving the energy problem in South Africa.
He said the BRICS Bank would be ready with the funding instruments for the country to resolve the energy challenges.
Of concern was that there needs to be an increase in the availability of power.
Ramokgopa had recently told the media that the energy availability factor in most of the power stations had been reduced and this resulted in load shedding.
He had said that if the government wanted to resolve this problem, the fiscus would have to fund the refurbishment of the old power stations.
Some of the power stations were built in the 1970s and 1980s and their lifespan was almost at an end.
Only Medupi and Kusile were built from 2008, when the country was trying to minimise the impact of load shedding, but their completion has been delayed due to design defects and other issues.
Ratsoma said the BRICS Bank was ready to help Eskom address the energy crisis.
“On the maintenance alongside the just energy transition, I had insinuated earlier on that we were working with the Ministry of Electricity to see how we can assist.
“As we are interested in financing the just energy transition, there is an appreciation that there is a current challenge, very immediate challenge, which is just being able to provide requisite power and that may require some financing in some form or the other on whatever work that needs to be done by Eskom.
“As and when that becomes clear we are one of those institutions. In fact, this morning we were talking about this very same issue with the new president of the NDB (Dilma Rousseff), that the bank has to be ready with all its instruments to be able to assist once it is clear, of course, what needs to be done in the immediate term to increase availability of power,” said Ratsoma.