“There are dozens of similar tenders that close in April that smell of a company that needs to operate an intricate, legacy infrastructure network with brand new procurement pipelines and has just suffered a messy breakup.”

“A host of suitors — independent power producers (IPPs), business lobbies (such as BLSA and Busa) and international climate financiers — aggressively rolling down their bakkie windows and calling for the total structural and financial separation of the NTCSA from Eskom Holdings.”

“Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa argues that total structural separation presents immediate, severe financial and administrative complexities.”

“President Cyril Ramaphosa mandated that the original reform trajectory must remain intact: the state will establish a fully independent transmission entity that will not only operate in the wholesale market but will also hold absolute ownership and control of the physical transmission assets.”

“The IPPs are demanding non-discriminatory, open access to high-yield renewable corridors that are currently bottlenecked.”

“They also insist that the NTCSA must have an entirely unencumbered balance sheet, completely free from Eskom’s legacy debt — arguing during a very detailed Krutham report media call — that this is the only way the NTCSA can secure independent credit ratings, satisfy international lenders, and fund its massive R440-billion Transmission Development Plan, which involves building 14,000km of new high-voltage lines over the next decade.”

“Abruptly carving these transmission assets out of Eskom’s financial web threatens creditor agreements and exacerbates fiscal risks.”

“Ramokgopa’s now-discarded split-entity strategy, which sought to keep physical assets within the Eskom corporate structure while spinning off operational duties to an independent Transmission System Operator, was actually a pragmatic attempt to navigate complex upward guarantees and lender anxieties.”

“The dedicated National Energy Crisis Committee (Necom) team has been tasked with figuring out how to execute Ramaphosa’s total separation order on a strict timeline without collapsing the house of energy transition cards.”