On Oct. 22, 2014, the South African government announced a support plan for ESKOM that will include a cash injection and a tariff increase of 12.7% in 2015/2016. We believe that the plan will support ESKOM's liquidity and credit metrics in the near term, and demonstrates our assessment of the "extremely high" likelihood that the government would provide extraordinary support, if needed. We are affirming our 'BBB-' foreign and local currency corporate credit ratings, and our 'zaAA-/zaA-1' national scale ratings on ESKOM. The negative outlook reflects our opinion that the support plan entails execution risks and that additional actions may need to be taken until ESKOM's underlying operating performance stabilizes. On Nov. 11, 2014, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services affirmed
