R30.3 billion is the number Eskom wanted on the release. It is the second profit after eight years of losses. It is also smaller than the money that never reached the income statement.
Outgoing CFO Calib Cassim put theft at 13.1 TWh generated, sent and used, then never billed. At about R2.20 a kilowatt-hour that is roughly R29 billion. Municipal invoices that failed the collectability test left another R15.8 billion off the revenue line. Add those two gaps. They beat the profit.
Revenue still rose 4.1% to R354.7 billion because tariffs went up. Sales volumes went the other way: 178 TWh, down 6.2% from 189.7. Industrial demand fell about 23%. Eskom named smelter cuts, mine shutdowns, weak recovery and rooftop solar. Diesel spend dropped R10.6 billion. Load-shedding in the year was 13 days. Net debt came down. Credit-rating houses moved.
The lights staying on is not the same as the cash arriving.
Municipal arrear debt hit R111.6 billion on 31 March, up R17 billion in a year. About R12 billion of that is metros. By June Cassim’s figure was about R119 billion. Eskom’s own path, if nobody intervenes, is R358 billion by 2031. It wrote off R3.6 billion this year and will write off another R4 billion across 21 municipalities next year on Treasury’s debt-relief instruction. Cassim’s line in the room was simple: solve the current account or the arrears keep eating the unbundle.
The statements still carry a going-concern uncertainty. The board says Eskom can continue. It also lists the holes: tariffs, falling sales, debt service, municipal debt, crime, illegal connections, illicit prepaid tokens.
There is now spare generation of a couple of gigawatts while customers leave the grid. Eskom Green is the answer on the slide. Demand is the answer on the meter.
A second profit year shows the fleet can run. It does not show Eskom can collect what it already generated. Theft plus unrecognised municipal bills outran the headline earnings. Sales are falling while the tariff path is still up.
The bill does not fall because the profit rose. Municipal debt that is not paid does not vanish. It sits in the next price application or another public support line. If you already put panels on the roof, you are inside the 6.2% sales drop. If you have not, you are still in the tariff.
* Who makes municipalities pay this month’s account before R119 billion becomes the 2031 number?
* Does Eskom Green find buyers for surplus power, or does that capacity sit cold while private PPAs take the load?
* And how many more tariff years does the ratepayer fund both the recovery and the theft?