Date: Apr 03, 2019
The New Development Bank (NDB) will provide a project loan of U.S.$480 million (about R6.8 billion) to Eskom for environmental protection project for Medupi Thermal Power Plant, National Treasury said on Tuesday.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan recently said that the Medupi and Kusile coal-fired power plants were “badly designed and badly constructed”.
Both power stations were supposed to add almost 9 600 megawatts to the grid and be fully operational in 2015, and their projected costs have more than doubled to R292.5 billion.
In a statement, Treasury said that this loan from the NDB was in line with the bank’s focus on supporting clean energy in South Africa.
The decisions were taken at the NDB 4th Annual Meeting in Cape Town from Sunday to Tuesday, where three of the five new projects approved for funding by the bank’s board of directors were South African. The five projects bring the NDB’s project portfolio to more than U.S.$9.2 billion.
The three new projects that were approved by the NDB board are for Eskom, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), and the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA).
The three South African projects are separate from the loan agreements that the NDB signed on Monday with Eskom and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).
