The Economic Intervention Forum of South Africa (EIFSA) has written to the Public Protector’s Office asking it to investigate, and effectively pause, the planned transfer of Eskom’s national transmission assets to a newly independent Transmission System Operator (TSO).
In a letter seen by Business Explainer, dated 20 July 2026 and addressed to the Public Protector Office as well as Parliamentary Portfolio Committees on Electricity and Energy, Competition Commission under Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC), Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) and Presidency Office. In the letter, EIFSA chairperson Hlathi “Zakhele” Madela says the organisation and its allied partners “note with grave concern the misalignments in the call for the transfer” of National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) assets to the TSO.
The letter goes further, questioning whether President Cyril Ramaphosa was properly advised when he sided against his own electricity minister on the matter. “It is our strong belief that the President, Honourable Cyril Ramaphosa was not properly guided in overruling the call of the Minister of Electricity and Energy on the NTCSA versus TSO matter,” Madela writes, asking the Public Protector to “establish the true facts” and “issue a Stop Order to the current process.”
The dispute Madela is referring to is real and well documented. In December 2025, Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa approved a revised Eskom unbundling plan that would have kept NTCSA, and its transmission assets, inside Eskom Holdings, with only system and market operations moving to a standalone TSO. That plan drew immediate pushback from business lobby groups including Business Leadership South Africa and Business Unity South Africa, who argued that letting Eskom retain the assets while acting as both generator and grid owner created an unavoidable conflict of interest.
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Ramaphosa overruled the minister’s approach in his February 2026 State of the Nation Address, directing that the TSO would own and operate the transmission grid outright. A Presidency-led Eskom Restructuring Task Team, chaired by the Director-General of National Treasury, has been developing the implementation plan since March.
| Detail | Figure / status |
| NTCSA estimated asset value | R700 billion – R1.4 trillion (per EIFSA letter) |
| Estimated transmission build cost (14,000km of new lines) | ~R440 billion |
| Legislated TSO deadline | 31 December 2029 (Electricity Regulation Act) |
| NTCSA established as Eskom subsidiary | July 2024 |
| Presidential reversal of minister’s plan | SONA, 12 February 2026 |
EIFSA’s letter, which lists the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, the Competition Commission, NERSA, COGTA, provincial governments and Eskom itself among the stakeholders it wants drawn into the matter, raises a long list of specific questions it wants the Public Protector to answer rather than asserting as fact.
Among them: whether the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act (ERAA) of 2025 actually compels Eskom to hand over the assets, whether public consultation on the Act was conducted in all eleven official languages and included municipalities and provinces, and whether the TSO has been formally gazetted as an independent state-owned entity. Madela also asks who within government or the private sector is driving the push to separate the assets from Eskom, and whether the TSO intends to compensate Eskom Holdings for assets he values at between R700 billion and R1.4 trillion.
“No company transfers its assets without it being paid,” the letter states, warning that removing NTCSA from Eskom’s balance sheet risks leaving the utility unable to service its debt. Describing NTCSA as Eskom’s “crown jewel,” Madela writes that the move “will leave Eskom to die a straight death to the grave.”
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EIFSA has a history of using regulatory and legal channels to contest major energy and economic transactions. The organisation, which describes itself as a custodian of South Africa’s “Economic Transformation Agenda,” lodged a formal complaint with the Competition Commission in 2023 over Vivo Energy’s acquisition of Engen, arguing the deal excluded black-owned bidders from the process. Madela, an energy industry analyst with 26 years’ experience, has also previously raised transformation concerns over long-term lease arrangements at Durban’s Island View Terminal fuel storage hub.
Last year, EIFSA raised objections on behalf of Black-owned petroleum traders left behind by the Department of Transport’s Section 79 Directive, which was entrenching colonial majors in South Africa. This was successful in ensuring that Black-owned petroleum traders would be incorporated up to 28%.
Previously, EIFSA successfully kept Eskom load shedding on the radar until budgets were allocated to Eskom’s coal fleet to stop load shedding.
If successful, this reversal of the Directive to Transfer NTCSA assets to the “independent” Transmission System Operator (TSO) will be EIFSA’s third major victory. EIFSA is calling on all South Africans to rise up and assist in reversing the untimely handover of NTCSA assets to the “independent” TSO.
EIFSA argues that these models have failed overseas in first-world countries, which have had to reverse these energy reforms.