The World Bank is in talks about a potential $1 billion loan to help enable South Africa to reform its energy sector, a bank official told Reuters, as the country tries to overcome record power cuts that have crippled the economy.<\/p>\n
The loan, which would be directly to the government rather than to state utility Eskom, is \u201cunder discussion\u201d, Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, the bank\u2019s director for South Africa, said in an interview in Marrakech, Morocco.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is going to come very soon,\u201d she added, declining to specify a timeframe.<\/p>\n
South Africa is facing its worst power crisis, with Eskom\u2019s ageing, coal-fired plants often breaking down. Rolling power cuts have crimped economic growth, while fuelling private investment in renewable energy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a policy development loan which supports critical reforms,\u201d Marie-Nelly said of the potential World Bank funding. \u201cThere\u2019s a particular focus on transmission, because it is a stumbling block in terms of bringing new (capacity) that is going to be built mainly by the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February, the South African government agreed to take on over 254 billion rand ($13.4 billion) of Eskom\u2019s debt through a debt relief scheme, subject to conditions.<\/p>\n
The main condition was that the power utility would not be able to take on any new debt for three years unless approved by the country\u2019s finance minister.<\/p>\n
In 2019, the government pledged to split Eskom into three subsidiaries – transmission, generation and distribution. Eskom said in August that its transmission arm would not be operational until 2025.<\/p>\n
The World Bank loan would also support South Africa to make a \u201cjust transition\u201d away from coal, to ensure vulnerable people do not suffer as a result, Marie-Nelly said.<\/p>\n
She said the government was \u201calso looking at the broader climate agenda, including looking at the carbon tax.\u201d<\/p>\n
In November 2022, the World Bank approved $497 million in financing to decommission and repurpose one of Eskom\u2019s coal-fired power plants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The World Bank is in talks about a potential $1 billion loan to help enable South Africa to reform its energy sector, a bank official told Reuters, as the country tries to overcome record power cuts that have crippled the economy. The loan, which would be directly to the government rather than to state utility […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9517,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,30],"tags":[1593,122,1184],"class_list":["post-9516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-southern-africa","tag-eskom","tag-south-africa","tag-world-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}