{"id":87582,"date":"2024-06-12T05:49:09","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T05:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/?p=87582"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:40:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:40:48","slug":"how-eskom-and-other-state-owned-companies-drain-the-governments-coffers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2024\/06\/12\/how-eskom-and-other-state-owned-companies-drain-the-governments-coffers\/","title":{"rendered":"How Eskom and other state-owned companies drain the government\u2019s coffers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In its Budget Review 2024, the Treasury included a section titled &#8216;How state-owned company support has become a drain on the fiscus&#8217;. It showed how in 2020, support given to these companies, which include Eskom, South African Airways (SAA), Denel, the Post Office and Transnet, reached R59.8-billion and has not dropped below that level since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom has received the most money by far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Treasury\u2019s data included allocations up to 31 March 2023. Since then Eskom has received another R76-billion, according to a written response by the minister of public enterprises to a question posed by an MP in April 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is not a bailout, wrote the minister, but &#8220;government support to mitigate the fact that the allowed revenue under the NERSA Multi-Year Price Determination (MYPD) allowable revenue theory is understated&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Be that as it may, this is the biggest &#8220;non-bailout&#8221; Eskom has received since the 2008\/2009 financial year. Bringing the total amount the power utility has received from the government for &#8220;recapitalisation&#8221;, which seems to be the preferred word now, since 2015\/16 to R257.6-billion. This is by far the most any SEO has received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"810\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Bailouts-2024-update.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-87584\" srcset=\"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Bailouts-2024-update.png 810w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Bailouts-2024-update-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Bailouts-2024-update-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Bailouts-2024-update-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 810px) 100vw, 810px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Why should we care about this? Most state\u2010owned companies rely on government bailouts to continue operations, according to the Treasury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even though major public companies, such as Eskom and SAA are intended to operate as sustainable businesses that generate profits and can borrow on the strength of their balance sheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because they don\u2019t they are a major strain on the country\u2019s finances or, as the Treasury puts it in the Budget Review, the expansion of financial support to state-owned companies is &#8216;a key driver of South Africa\u2019s increasingly constrained fiscal position&#8217;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite receiving bailouts SAA is in business rescue, so too is the Post Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In its Budget Review 2024, the Treasury included a section titled &#8216;How state-owned company support has become a drain on the fiscus&#8217;. It showed how in 2020, support given to these companies, which include Eskom, South African Airways (SAA), Denel, the Post Office and Transnet, reached R59.8-billion and has not dropped below that level since.<\/p>\n<p>Eskom has received the most money by far. The Treasury\u2019s data included allocations up to 31 March 2023. Since then Eskom has received another R76-billion, according to a written response by the minister of public enterprises to a question posed by an MP in April 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1387],"tags":[],"newsletter-post":[],"site":[],"class_list":["post-87582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-the-outlier"],"acf":{"post_style":"ch","show_on_front":"Yes","link_through":"Yes","big_number":"","big_number_caption":"","big_number_link":"","big_number_background":"","big_number_text_colour":"#000000","big_number_icon":false,"featured_chart":{"ID":87583,"id":87583,"title":"Treasury-bailouts","filename":"Treasury-bailouts.png","filesize":75174,"url":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Treasury-bailouts.png","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2024\/06\/12\/how-eskom-and-other-state-owned-companies-drain-the-governments-coffers\/treasury-bailouts\/","alt":"","author":"1","description":"","caption":"","name":"treasury-bailouts","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":87582,"date":"2024-06-12 05:46:06","modified":"2024-06-12 05:46:06","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":810,"height":810,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Treasury-bailouts-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Treasury-bailouts-300x300.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Treasury-bailouts-768x768.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":768,"large":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Treasury-bailouts.png","large-width":810,"large-height":810,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Treasury-bailouts.png","1536x1536-width":810,"1536x1536-height":810,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Treasury-bailouts.png","2048x2048-width":810,"2048x2048-height":810}},"flourish_chart_id":"","flourish_sub_title":"","flourish_chart_width":"medium","is_newsletter_post":"No","chart_url":"","background_colour":"#0089AA","text_colour":"#FFFFFF"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87582"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87826,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87582\/revisions\/87826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87582"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-post?post=87582"},{"taxonomy":"site","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/site?post=87582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}