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Johannesburg - Power utility Eskom has still not announced when it will publish its financial results, even though almost four months have passed since the group's financial year ended on March 31.
This comes after Eskom warned earlier the results "would be bad", as the group had to contend with buying its major input - coal - on pricier short-term contracts after coal stockpiles were depleted last year. The results were scheduled to be published two weeks ago, but have been postponed indefinitely. No reason was given for the postponement.
Last week an Eskom employee in the communications department said a "suitable date" for the release of the results had not been scheduled, and that he was not allowed to divulge reasons for the delay.
According to another source close to the process, the results were handed to Minister of Public Enterprises Barbara Hogan last week. "We were expecting it back this week," the source said.
Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu has for the past two weeks failed to respond to Fin24.com's enquiries, while the public enterprises department refused to confirm or deny that Eskom's results were in the minister's office.
"I can't confirm that," said the department's Ayanda Shezi. "As for when they [results] will be released, that's a question for the board of Eskom to respond to."
In the financial year to end-March 2008, Eskom reported a R974m net profit, down from R6.4bn a year earlier.
Eskom is in the middle of a capacity-building exercise requiring about R385bn and has said it expects a R27bn funding shortfall this year. It has sought unusually high electricity tariff hikes to fund the immediate shortfall, the latest being an interim 31.4% tariff increase approved by the National Electricity Regulator of SA in June.
In September it will apply for an additional tariff increase to fund its infrastructure spend.
Last year ratings agency Moody's downgraded Eskom's local foreign currency rating to Baa2 from A2, and said the outlook for all other ratings were negative.
In June, Fitch Ratings put Eskom's long-term issuer default rating at negative from stable. This conspires to make the funding Eskom desperately seeks more expensive.
- Fin24.com