The department in Parliament on Wednesday briefed the committee on the roadmap for Eskom, which outlines the government’s implementation plan to reform the power utility. 

The plan is to separate Eskom into three separate entities, generation, transmission and distribution, which the department says will allow more  transparency and increase the efficiency of the three entities.

Responding to the committees concerns about, among others, private and public partnerships, privatisation, as well as job losses, the department said that there would be no privatisation of the power utility itself. 

However, it said that more "private players will enter the generation sector where independent power producers" would play a role. 

The department said that it had consulted with its stakeholders and that the labour unions had been "brought on board on the plan".

It said it would continue its engagement with the labour unions and have "a constructive conversation" to keep them abreast and informed about what the government wanted to achieve. 

The department said that Cabinet had endorsed the plan. 

African News Agency