Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has made a U-turn on exempting Eskom from reporting their irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure on its annual financial statements. Godongwana said last week that the struggling power utility was exempted from disclosing its finances for at least three years. 

WITHDRAWING EXEMPTION 

Godongwana announced today during Parliament's Committee on Appropriations, the Standing Committee on FInance briefing that Treasury was withdrawing Eskom's exemption. "We have decided to withdraw the gazette for now and take all these comments to account and also have a detailed consultation with the Auditor General and the auditors at Eskom so that the framing is proper and checks and balances for corruption are tightened,' Godongwana added that the public has taken an interest in the matter because of the history of corruption at Eskom. "We appreciate that South Africans are quite aggressive and vigilant against corruption, which is going to be an important point for our society. We take that as a positive step,' he said. "We had an intensive discussion with the Auditor General (AG) and in that discussion, there were some comments by the AG which have to be part of the framing of the gazette,' Godongwana said. 

TRANSPARENCY AT ESKOM 

Godongwana further said that this was not done to obscure transparency at Eskom or to shield corruption. "We wanted to make sure that we met conditions for Eskom to report quarterly on what actions that are taking in that regard. But of course, the public has taken an interest in this decision because of the history of corruption. We take that as a positive step. The initial plan is to allow Eskom to have a better financial statement and create an environment where there is better transparency on financial management and all of that. The intention is not to hide anything in that regard," he said.