Johannesburg — THE Department of Energy yesterday disputed Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan 's statement in Parliament this week that it was responsible for delaying the entry of independent power producers into the electricity market.

The public disagreement between the two departments bears testimony to Eskom's peculiar position -- the Department of Public Enterprises, to which it reports, is not responsible for developing energy policy, which is a competency of the Department of Energy.

Media reports this week quoted Hogan as saying the delays in securing power from independent power producers was the fault of the energy department.

In order to enable transactions with the independent power producers, there had to be confirmation of an integrated resource plan which would indicate the capacity that could be allocated to independent producers, she said.

But the energy department said yesterday that it was wrong to say there was no enabling environment to facilitate the entry of independent producers into the market.

"Eskom recently sent out correspondence to all the short-term generation bidders wherein it indicated that it is unable to sign power purchase agreements with any of them until the funding model has been finalised by government," the department's spokesman, Bheki Khumalo, said yesterday. "Currently there is 417MW of electricity that can be immediately generated."

Khumalo said the department had completed the integrated resource plan.

"We are currently piloting it through the Cabinet process. It is our firm belief that we have created an environment conducive for the effective introduction of the independent power producers.

"We are awaiting the finalisation of the multiyear price-determination process which, we believe, will address the vexing issue of Eskom's funding model," Khumalo said.