Why can’t Eskom be treated like the rest of us?

IAM NEITHER a development economics nor a financial analyst, but I am going to use information in the public domain to analyse Eskom. Eskom is a state-owned enterprise and that makes its employees public servants, it is then to the benefit of the public for Eskom not to talk about profit but surplus and that surplus should benefit the public. It can be used to reduce the price of electricity or to freeze the price of electricity for a number of years while it expands its infrastructure. For the period to September Eskom made R9.3 billion profit but they went to Nersa for a tariff increase, which they got, and it will generate an extra R7.8bn in revenue.

How can a profit-making state enterprise want to suck dry taxpayers for that much while it is owed R4bn by municipalities and has made R9.3bn in profit? What makes a state enterprise with R9.3bn (profit) + R4bn (municipal debt) = R13.3bn go to government to suck R20bn from tax payers’ coffers?

Again I am not an analyst, but if for one year government exempt Eskom from paying tax, looking at September 30, 2014, figures it means they will have R12bn before tax to fund expansions, it will further collect R4bn from municipal debt then it’ll be having R16bn, that is only R4bn from what it got from government. And it will have to do with that like the rest of us.

How can the government continue to bail out Eskom while it can’t collect its debt of R4bn? How can the government bail out a profit-making body? How is a tax payer expected to cope with tariff increase while my tax also feeds this money hungry Eskom? How can the government continue to feed this monster while it is losing tax because we are losing revenue because of load shedding?

How can the government continue to bail out Eskom while it can’t collect its debt of R4bn? How can the government bail out a profit-making body?