State-owned entities Eskom, the South African Post Office , and Transnet’s financials have been dismal for the past three years, with two of the three posting a loss in 2020/21, 2021/2022, 2022/23.
The state-owned power utility reported a R18.9 billion loss for the 12 months between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021.However, its losses skyrocketed between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023, almost doubling the net loss reported the year prior.“ net loss after tax being increased almost two-fold … despite a 9.61% increase in tariffs,” said Calib Cassim, acting CEO at Eskom at the time.
However, things swung again the following year, with Transnet reporting a loss of R5.7 billion due to its ports not functioning properly. Sapo reduced its losses during the 2020/21 financial year, from R5.3 billion in 2019/20 to R2.4 billion. Over the years, Eskom accumulated a large amount of debt building new power stations, amongst other things, to improve its ability to generate electricity.