“Driving the living progress on the unbundling of Eskom into separate entities for generation, transmission and distribution. Significant progress has been made towards the establishment of the National Transmission Company of SA [NTCSA] as an independent subsidiary of Eskom.

“The NTCSA has applied to Nersa for transmission, electricity trading, and electricity import and export licences on which a decision is expected shortly. The appointment of a board for the NTCSA is being finalised in parallel to the licence application to ensure that the new entity can be operationalised as soon as possible,” she said.

“Also, the 2023 budget introduced R254bn in debt relief to Eskom, subject to strict conditions and, finally, introducing tax incentives to support small-scale embedded generation.

“The minister of finance [Enoch Godongwana] announced powerful tax incentives for businesses and households to invest in rooftop solar, where we are now seeing a massive surge of investment,” she said.

In terms of water resources control, Ntshavheni said the number of water use licence applications processed within the revised time-frame of 90 days has increased to 70% from 35% in the first quarter of 2022, and the water department is targeting a further improvement to 80% of all applications.

“The Blue Drop, Green Drop and No Drop water quality monitoring system has been reinstated, with updated reports due to be published within the next quarter. This will provide a thorough assessment of the state of water infrastructure at municipal level and enable intervention where municipalities are failing to meet minimum norms and standards for water service delivery,” she added.

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