Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has withdrawn the gazette on the Eskom exemption after meeting with the Auditor-General.
Godongwana told parliamentarians on Wednesday that after a huge public outcry on the matter, he had also met with the Auditor-General, Tsakani Maluleke.
He said after meeting with the AG, he decided to pull the plug on the gazette, pending further consultations on the matter.
Godongwana was appearing before joint committees on the auditor-general, finance, appropriations and public enterprises.
He said the reason for granting this exemption to Eskom was informed by its financial situation.
When the year started, Godongwana announced a bailout of R254 billion to Eskom to resolve its financial challenges.
This was for the medium term, said the minister.
Eskom has been experiencing rolling blackouts for the last few months.
This prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to appoint the Minister of Electricity to resolve the energy crisis.
But Godongwana said when they looked at the situation at the power utility, they realised it would not be able to raise capital in the markets unless they exempted it from disclosing irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure in the annual financial statements.
But these would be disclosed in the annual report that the power utility tables every year in Parliament, like other state-owned entities.
Godongwana said he had seen the public anger over this issue.
He met with the Auditor-General on the exemption.
“Yesterday, we had an intensive discussion with the Auditor-General. In that discussion, there were some comments by the auditor-general, which have got to be part of the framing of the gazette. In light of those comments, we decided to withdraw the gazette for now and take all those comments into account and also have a detailed consultation with the auditor-general and Deloitte and Touche, the auditors of Eskom, so that the framing must be proper, checks and balances for corruption tightened,” said Godongwana.
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