south africas treasury vowed wednesday to take over a portion of eskoms multibilliondollar debt to ensure the embattled energy utilitys viability and curb the energy crisis that has put breaks on growth in a mini budget statement finance minister enoch godongwana said government has decided to give eskom 225 billion rand 124 billion towards its debt for the period 2019 to 2026 the programme will allow eskom to focus on plant performance and capital investment the minister said before parliament adding the debt takeover will ensure the company no longer relies on government bailouts eskom which he labelled the biggest risk to the economy is bucking under a 400billionrand debt for more than a decade and a half it has battled to adequately power up the continents most industrialised economy the debt takeover once finalised together with other reforms will ensure that eskom is financially sustainable he said the government has for more than a decade poured billions of rands into eskom with limited improvements in the reliability of the electricity supply or the financial health of the company he said sweeping power outages caused by failures at ageing and poorly maintained infrastructure at the stateowned company  which provides almost all of south africas electricity  have severely hampered economic growth projected economic growth for this year is 19 percent falling dismally from 49 percent in 2021 according to budget documents in addition to recurring power cuts which have brought an immense economic cost the recovery has also been hampered by a series of shocks these include massive damage caused by riots which broke out in july 2021 following former president jacob zumas jailing and left more than 350 dead unprecedented floods that swept through the countrys third largest city of durban killing hundreds also put a damper on growth