Eskom records increase in net-profit over first six months of the financial year

The results show that the embattled power utility recorded a net profit of R1.6 billion, despite the continued financial and operational challenges that Eskom has encountered. 

Revenue grew to R158.6 billion due to the favourable impact of the tariff increase for the 2024 financial year.

This represents a 9.5% increase from the R144.8 billion in September 2022. 

However, sales volumes dropped by 5,9%. 

The decline in sales volumes was largely influenced by supply constraints, coupled with lower electricity demand from customers due to difficult economic conditions.

Non-technical losses, including the theft of electricity through illegal connections, meter tampering and ghost vending also contributed to declining sales volumes.

In a statement released by the entity on Wednesday evening, Eskom stated that its debt remains unsustainably high. 

To address this issue, the state has committed a total of R78 billion in debt relief for the 2024 financial year, of which R16 billion was received in August, R20 billion in October and R5 billion in December 2023.

The remainder of the bail out will be paid over in the current financial year.

Eskom's Acting Group Chief Executive, Calib Cassim. said the debt relief will improve the entity's financial sustainability. 

"Government's debt relief solution will go a long way towards improving Eskom's financial sustainability and liquidity in the short to medium term, the impact of which we have already seen with the recent credit upgrades. We continue to execute our turnaround plan to improve financial and operational performance in the medium to long term". 

"Our overall focus remains on improving the performance of the Generation fleet to reduce the level of loadshedding being experienced by the country, and to limit the amount spent on supplementing capacity through the use of the expensive diesel plant," adds Cassim.

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