Govt pension fund: It would be wrong to dismiss Eskom bailout proposal without all the facts
19 February 2020
It would be "untoward" of the Government Employees Pension Fund to dismiss a proposal to bailout debt-laden power utility Eskom without knowing all the facts, MPs heard on Wednesday.
The GEPF's Principal Executive Officer, Abel Sithole, and its Head of Corporate Services, Musa Mabesa, briefed Parliament's standing committee on finance on the fund's 2018/19 financial report.
During the briefing members of Parliament asked about a proposal from labour federation Cosatu to create a special purpose finance vehicle to take on as much as R250 billion of Eskom's debt. The vehicle would be funded via state-run asset manager the Public Investment Corporation, and other state development finance institutions. Cosatu's proposal served as a basis for talks between unions, government and business to reduce the power utility's crippling debt burden of R450 billion. The talks have not concluded.
The PIC manages over R2 trillion in investments with the GEPF – Africa's largest pension fund – as its biggest client. The GEPF has over R1.8 trillion of its assets under management. More than half of these are pension assets, Fin24 previously reported.