South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal recently ruled that the country’s state-owned electricity utility Eskom must disclose its contracts with coal and diesel suppliers. This is a major victory for transparency in a sector that has long been marked by secrecy, financial instability and weak public trust.
Eskom generates about 90% of the country’s electricity, mainly through burning coal that it buys from South Africa’s coal mines.
Eskom spends R70 billion (US$4.16 billion) a year on coal and its transport alone but until now, its contracts with the mines have been kept hidden.
