Parliament, Thursday, 29 August 2019 – The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has concluded its oversight visits to Medupi and Kusile power stations. The committee undertook these visits with the aim of understanding the challenges that led to the country-wide power outages early this year. The committee also wanted to inform itself about the cost escalations at these power stations. Both challenges contributed to Eskom’s poor performance over the past few years and have had a negative impact on the country.

On Tuesday, Scopa visited the Medupi power station in Lephalale and on Wednesday it visited the Kusile power station in Witbank, engaging with management and officials at both stations. Today, the committee met with Eskom’s Board and management, and engaged on the issues that emerged at the power stations.

The committee will develop a detailed report from these oversight visits, which will be tabled in Parliament. Scopa has committed to closely monitoring Eskom while it works to overcome the challenges plaguing it and to rooting out corruption. In line with Scopa’s mandate, this will include scrutinizing Eskom’s financial statements when they are submitted to Parliament.

Scopa appreciates the seriousness on Eskom’s part of understanding the importance of the work of the committee in laying out a programme of interaction in an effort to reaching a solution to the current problems. This understanding is significant particularly because of Eskom’s performance for the past few years. Eskom incurred a loss of R2.3 billion, R19.6 billion in irregular expenditure and a debt of R380 billion in 2017/18. Scopa wants to see this situation turned around. This is why it saw it fit to start this journey with Eskom.

ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF SCOPA, MR MKHULEKO HLENGWA. 

For media enquiries, please contact the committee’s Media Officer:

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Parliamentary Communication Services
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Email: fndenze@parliament.gov.za