Ramaphosa Pours Cold Water on South African Power-Plant Sale

(Bloomberg) -- South African President Cyril Ramaphosa poured cold water on proposals by his Finance Minister Tito Mboweni that state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC. Ltd sell some of its power plants to help settle its debt.

“South Africa is not inherently in the business of selling power stations,” Ramaphosa told lawmakers in Cape Town on Thursday. Eskom’s new plants were its “crown jewels” and should be retained, while the old ones were unlikely to find buyers, he said.

In a policy paper published in August, Mboweni suggested that the sale of Eskom’s generating facilities could raise 450 billion rand ($30 billion), which equates to its entire debt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Vecchiatto in Cape Town at pvecchiatto@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Mike Cohen, Alastair Reed

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