CAPE TOWN: South Africa’s power utility Eskom is said to be seeking a Government guarantee of R500 million to back electricity imports by Zimbabwe. Well placed sources told The Herald Business that the request for a guarantee follows failure by the local power utility to pay for imports from South Africa, and this could see Zesa start to ration electricity supplies.Zesa is facing cash flow challenges mainly as a result of a huge debtors book, currently at $1,1 billion. This has also been worsened by the unavailability of the 2016 tariff upward adjustment.
Zesa has since increased recovery rate to 50 percent from 40 percent of electricity purchases on consumers with pre-paid metres. This means Zesa will take 50 percent of every purchase to offset debts accumulated under the old conventional billing system. “They (Eskom) are still willing to do business with Zesa but they have requested for a Government guarantee and we are looking at the issue,” a source in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development said.
