Public Interest SA Calls for Transparency Over Eskom Restructuring Report

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA | Tuesday, 11 August 2026 — Public Interest SA notes the Presidency’s announcements concerning the restructuring of Eskom and the proposed establishment of a fully independent, state-owned Transmission System Operator (TSO), following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s endorsement of the Eskom Restructuring Task Team (ERTT) Phase I report on 31 July 2026.

The proposed reform is significant. The establishment of an independent TSO is intended to separate transmission and system operation from Eskom’s generation interests and facilitate the development of a competitive wholesale electricity market. The Presidency has previously described this reform as critical to achieving greater energy security, competition and more affordable electricity.

Public Interest SA has consistently supported meaningful reform of Eskom and recognises that the restructuring of South Africa’s electricity market may be necessary to secure the long-term sustainability of the energy sector. We are therefore not opposed to the unbundling of Eskom per se.

Our concern, however, is not with the stated objective of the reform, but with the lack of transparency surrounding the report that provides the basis for this important policy decision.

The ERTT Phase I report is understood to contain the analysis and recommendations underpinning a restructuring process that could have profound and enduring consequences for Eskom, the electricity market, public finances, energy security, consumers, workers and the broader South African economy.

Yet, when Public Interest SA initially sought access to the report, the Presidency informed us that:

“Due to commercially sensitive information contained in the report and ongoing consultations over the unbundling process, the report will not be made public.”

We find this response unsatisfactory.

The fact that a report may contain commercially sensitive information cannot, in itself, justify withholding an entire report from public scrutiny.

Where legitimate commercial sensitivities exist, there are established mechanisms for protecting genuinely confidential information — including appropriate redactions — while still enabling meaningful public access to the substance, reasoning and conclusions of a document of such profound public importance.

The central question is therefore not simply whether Eskom should be unbundled, but whether the decision to proceed with this particular model is rational, properly evidenced, financially prudent and demonstrably in the public interest.

Those questions cannot adequately be answered without access to the underlying analysis.

Public resources and strategic public assets are involved. Eskom remains a state-owned enterprise whose financial position has significant implications for the national fiscus and South African electricity consumers.

The restructuring of its transmission assets and the creation of an independent TSO will necessarily have consequences extending well beyond Eskom itself.

The public is therefore entitled to understand, among other things, the assumptions underpinning the proposed restructuring; the alternatives considered and rejected; the anticipated financial implications; the treatment of Eskom’s existing obligations and liabilities; the implications for electricity tariffs and consumers; the governance and accountability arrangements proposed for the new TSO; and the safeguards intended to ensure that the reform does not simply replace one form of concentration or institutional weakness with another.

Good governance requires more than announcing a policy outcome. It requires transparency about the evidence, reasoning and public-interest considerations upon which that outcome is based.

Public Interest SA has consequently written formally to the Presidency requesting that it reconsider its position and make the ERTT Phase I report available, subject only to the redaction of information that can legitimately and demonstrably be protected in law.

We believe that such disclosure would not undermine the restructuring process. On the contrary, transparency would strengthen it by allowing Parliament, organised labour, civil society, industry, energy experts and the public to interrogate the proposals constructively and contribute meaningfully to a reform of such national consequence.

Public Interest SA will persist with its request for access to the report as we undertake a careful assessment of the proposed restructuring and its implications for the public interest.

Should the Presidency maintain its refusal to provide access, we will consider the lawful remedies available to us, including appropriate avenues for challenging the withholding of information.

We emphasise that this is not an attempt to frustrate Eskom reform. It is an attempt to ensure that a reform of this magnitude is undertaken transparently, rationally, accountably and in a manner that protects the public interest.

South Africa has learnt, at considerable cost, that decisions involving state-owned enterprises, public assets and billions of rands cannot be insulated from scrutiny simply because they are presented as matters of policy or commercial sensitivity.

The restructuring of Eskom must not become another exercise in which the public is asked to trust without being allowed to verify.

Public Interest SA therefore calls on the Presidency to reconsider its position and release the ERTT Phase I report, with only genuinely sensitive information appropriately redacted.

Transparency is not an impediment to reform. It is one of the safeguards that makes legitimate reform sustainable.

Quo vadis, Mr President?

ENDS

Issued by: Public Interest SA

Media enquiries: Bagaetsho Oteng | 084 566 5400 media@publicinterest.org.za