Eskom has recorded a R16 billion profit after taxes.

This is for the first time in eight years the power utility has shown a profit

This was revealed by CEO Dan Marokane at a media briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday afternoon.

The power utility says this profit will be invested back into the business for critical infrastructure and energy security.

Eskom says it will invest more than R320-billion in sustaining and expanding infrastructure for the long-term benefit of the nation.

Marokane explains the measures that were implemented in order to achieve the profit margins.

“In the midst of all of this, we were able to come out with a R16 billion after tax compared to the previous years of R55 billion losses. This performance is driven by significant savings in the primary energy costs by the increase in sales of 3.5 percent because of our generation performance. This is much more favourable than generating power from diesel machines. It’s also that tariff increase that kicked in.”

Meanwhile, Eskom Board Chairperson Mteto Nyati says a lack of discipline was found to be one of major challenges affecting the power utility during the implementation of its turnaround plan in 2022. 

Nyati says the board has made significant progress on the turnaround in its term.

He says the focus will remain on building a sustainable and competitive organisation. 

“The first thing for us was to stabilise this company. We found a number of challenges in this organisation. There were leadership instability and a dysfunctional organisational culture. One of them was a misalignment with business leaders to the rest of the company. The other was discipline in general. There was no clear turnaround plan.” 

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