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Cape Town - Power utility Eskom told Parliament on Wednesday that it was not near bankruptcy and would cooperate with rating agencies to avoid downgrades.
Eskom is battling to keep the lights on and faces a serious liquidity crunch. It has frequently had to resort to controlled power cuts to prevent the grid from being overwhelmed.
The utility's funding gap to 2018 is estimated at R200bn and it is getting a R23bn cash injection from the government this year.
"From a cash position Eskom has got a substantial amount of facilities that have been negotiated but not drawn down," said the newly-appointed acting chief executive Brian Molefe.
"In addition, the Treasury has made a commitment to give Eskom about R23bn which I believe will be given in two tranches during this financial year," said Molefe, who was appointed to his role on Friday.
WATCH: Molefe could be Eskom’s saviour - Yelland
"We do not think that Eskom is about to be declared bankrupt or insolvent," Molefe said of the struggling utility.
Standard & Poor's in March cut its credit ratings for Eskom to junk following the suspension of the utility's CEO and three other senior executives.
READ: S&P downgrades Eskom to junk
"We will be engaging with rating agencies to find out what it is they would like to see for Eskom to be re-rated investment grade and we will do everything that they say we should do to bring it back," Molefe said.
Eskom executives also told Parliament the utility has a maintenance backlog and requires a minimum of between 3 000 MW to a maximum of 5 000 MW to carry out the repairs in order to avoid further power cuts.
Last week Eskom suffered its worst power shortage in years after losing a quarter of its supply due to unplanned outages in addition to scheduled maintenance.
