The risk of South Africa’s struggling state power utility going bust doesn’t appear to faze one of its biggest creditors – the World Bank. The Washington-based lender agreed to lend Eskom Holdings $4-billion almost a decade ago to boost its generation capacity and avoid a repetition of rolling blackouts. Mismanagement and construction cost overruns have seen the state of the utility’s finances going from bad to worse since then, forcing the government to bail it out. Details of a R230-billion rescue package are due to be unveiled soon.
