Eskom says if it is not granted tariff increases it wants from March this year, its finances might collapse, triggering a national crisis, as both the State\u2019s credit ratings and consumers\u2019 well-being would suffer. The power utility – which is battling to keep the lights on due to aging power stations, among other factors – is also sitting on a R450-billion mountain of debt, causing to struggle containing runaway diesel and debt servicing costs. Representing Eskom at the High Court in Pretoria, where the power utility has applied for interim relief – asking the court to grant it 16.6% tariff increase for the current year and 16.7% increase for 2020\/21 – Advocate Matthew Chaskalson said if the parastatal doesn\u2019t get these increases, its finances will collapse. He said because R318-billion of Eskom\u2019s current debt is guaranteed by the State, if the utility defaults because tariffs don\u2019t cover its costs, those guarantees will immediately become payable by the State. And if the State cannot pay it, it could trigger an immediate liability for the State\u2019s R980-billion debt too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eskom says if it is not granted tariff increases it wants from March this year, its finances might collapse, triggering a national crisis, as both the State\u2019s credit ratings and consumers\u2019 well-being would suffer. The power utility – which is battling …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[937],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1160036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1160036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160037,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160036\/revisions\/1160037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1160036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1160036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1160036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}