Godongwana withdraws Eskom exemption

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has withdrawn his decision to exempt Eskom from declaring irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure in its financial statements.

Godongwana and National Treasury are currently meeting with the standing committees on the Auditor-General, Finance, Public Accounts, Appropriations and the Public Enterprises Portfolio Committee.

The public reacted with outrage to Godongwana’s decision.

On Tuesday, the Chairperson of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance Sifiso Buthelezi, said the decision would make the public start to question the credibility of state-owned enterprises.

“I think it’s very important that we should be transparent. If there are things that are going wrong, we should be seen as a country that we are attending to those things [that] are not being covered or companies are exempted from reporting on their financial statements. It may create problems for us. It may even create problems with the ratings agencies.”

“It may even create problems with the funders of our institutions. I think one important thing that may come up … people may start doubting our annual financial statements, not just of Eskom, but of other institutions,” added Buthelezi.

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