‘There’s no turning back’ – Minister Ramokgopa on Eskom

The financial year ending March 2024 was an inflection point for Eskom, signifying the turnaround of the energy utility.

This according to Electricity and Energy Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, who addressed the media at the utility’s annual results announcement for the Financial Year 2024.

“The 2024 financial year is a point of inflection. There’s no turning back [and] we’ll only improve from here and that’s the assurance we are giving to the country,” Ramokgopa said on Thursday.

The financial year ending in March was a challenging one for the power utility.

The country experienced at least 329 days of load shedding (between April last year and end of March 2024), there was a decline in plant availability; distribution energy losses amounted to some 13.9TWh as well as worsened emissions performance.

Eskom also recorded a net loss before tax of some R25.5 billion – an improvement from the previous financial year’s R34.6 billion.

The separation of the National Transmission Company has triggered a once-off accounting adjustment – leading to loss after tax of R55 billion.

The National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) officially commenced trading earlier in the year, marking the company’s establishment as a distinct and wholly owned subsidiary of Eskom. At the time, it was said that the NTCSA will own and operate the country’s national transmission system.

The Minister acknowledged the issues faced by Eskom over the last financial year. 

He reminded South Africans, however, that the electricity producer has upped its performance – resulting in more than 260 days of no load shedding, improved plant performance and billions of Rands in diesel cost savings.

“We are taking responsibility of what happened, and the numbers don’t look good. We carry that responsibility and take the good with the bad. The projection outlook going forward is very positive, but we are responsibility for that record. 

“[But] we are able to illustrate to the country that we are moving in the right direction. We can simply improve from here,” he said.
Eskom Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane, explained that although the year was a “painful year” for the electricity provider, it was also a “building year in terms of our path towards recovery”. 

This was the year in which the Generation Recovery Plan was instituted. A lot of effort went into investing into both maintenance expenditure and human resources that was critically required to enable execution.

“It’s also a year where we started seeing the government debt relief programme kicking into action. The certainty that arises from that gave us the ability to plan better and to do the deep maintenance that was required in that financial year,” he said.

Marokane, reiterated the Minister’s sentiments – calling the tough results a part of the state-owned entity’s recovery.

“We own [the results]. They are our results. They are part of our story. They are part of our journey, and we hope that in due course as we add more points, you will begin to see the recovery path unfolding,” Marokane said. – SAnews.gov.za

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