A corporate vehicle outside the Kusile coal-fired power station, operated by Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., in Delmas, Mpumalanga province, South Africa, on Wednesday, June 8, 2022. The coal-fired plants sixth and last unit is expected to reach commercial operation in two years, with the fifth scheduled to be done by December 2023. 
Godongwana on Friday ruled out any further cash injections for the company that’s struggling to produce enough power to meet demand. That’s despite calls from the newly appointed Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa for more fiscal support to ease outages, known locally as loadshedding.
Read more: South Africa Finance Chief Rules Out More State Funds for Eskom
Straying from the latest debt-relief plan would test the credibility of South Africa’s fiscal framework and budget processes in a country with a full house of junk credit ratings. It would also rattle investors who have placed a premium on the currency because of the slow pace of economic reforms, severe power rationing and logistics-network constraints that are eroding the nation’s growth prospects.
The rand has weakened more than 6% against the dollar this year, making it the worst performer in a basket of 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
Eskom has subjected the country to blackouts for all but one 24-hour cycle this year. The severity is expected to increase during the South African winter that runs from June through August. The intense outages that limit people’s ability to heat and light their homes and cook food in the colder months may stoke discontent in a nation where there’s growing anger over the government’s failure to deliver basic services, according to analysts.