De Ruyter reiterated in a briefing to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises that there was no truth to reports that Eskom had "mistakenly" made a payment of R5 billion to Tegeta.

"That is a claim that Eskom has against the business rescue. We are pursuing that claim, obviously in conjunction with other parties. As you know, the Tegeta company is now in business rescue and we are having to compete with other creditors of this entity to try and recover what money we may," he said.

"That is the origin of the number of R5 billion. There is no five billion in an accounting error or erroneous payment, or anything of the sort, if I can just clarify that matter."

Reports, since clarified in an earlier statement by Eskom, said that the company had, through an accounting error, paid Tegeta with little hope of recovering the money.

De Ruyter is, however, on the record that it was doubtful that Eskom would recover the full claim, which relates to money paid to the exploration company. Tegeta was once central to the so-called state capture scandal in which entities linked to the politically connected Gupta family syphoned billions from South Africa's parastatals.

De Ruyter told the committee that he was "absolutely convinced" that a restructuring blueprint being implemented at Eskom to unbundle its generation, transmission and distribution arms, would turn it into a more efficient enterprise. 

"The restructuring and legal separation into three focused entities is a well known, well-proven way of unlocking greater efficiency and greater focus, at the same time as enticing more private investment, particularly into the generation sector.

"So this is what we seek to achieve with our divisionalisation, our legal separation exercise, and we are very confident that this will unlock the benefits anticipated within the roadmap."

De Ruyter conceded that the construction of South Africa's two new, large coal-fired power plants had contributed significantly to the company's debt, which now stands at an unwieldy R450 billion (USD 31.4 billion).

Public enterprises minister, Pravin Gordhan urged MPs to see the money the government continued to put into Eskom as a way of correcting and taking responsibility for past wrongs, in the case of a company that was vital to the economy.

But he stressed that the government's aim was that Eskom, like other struggling state-owned entities, should reach a point of being self-sufficient and sustainable "sooner rather than later".

African News Agency