National Tito Mboweni seeks to appoint Maria Ramos to head Eskom unbundling BL PREMIUM

Former Absa CEO Maria Ramos is expected to be brought in to head the explosive process of unbundling Eskom into three components, as the energy utility came close to imploding financially in the past few days. The National Treasury scrambled to Eskom's aid after a promised R7bn loan from the China Development Bank failed to come through by the end of March, leaving the utility in dire straits and unable to meet its credit obligations. Finance minister Tito Mboweni invoked section 16 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) to authorise an emergency transfer of R5bn to Eskom to repay expiring debt and interest on loans. A total of R17.6bn will be made available to Eskom, with the next tranche to be paid to the power utility before the end of April. Read the full Sunday Times story