What Really Happened to Eskom’s Billions?
How years of bailouts, bad deals, and poor leadership broke South Africa’s biggest power company
What Really Happened to Eskom’s Billions?
Eskom is the company that gives electricity to almost every home and business in South Africa. It supplies nearly 95% of the country’s electricity.
For many years, it has been in serious trouble. Power cuts, broken equipment, and corruption have become part of everyday life.
But the biggest question remains: what happened to all the money that was meant to fix it?
How much money are we talking about?
Since around 2008, Eskom has received nearly R500 billion in government bailouts, that’s money paid by taxpayers to keep it running.
To put it simply, South Africans could have used that money to build over 8 000 new schools or more than 2 million homes. Instead, the funds went to Eskom to help pay off debt, fix problems, and keep the lights on.
Why Eskom needed help
Eskom’s main problems are bad management, corruption, and huge debts. By 2022, it owed more than R420 billion, and government had to take on half that debt to stop the company from collapsing.
Over the years, Eskom was supposed to use its money to build new power stations and upgrade old ones. But many of these projects went wrong. The two biggest—Medupi and Kusile—cost far more than planned and are still not running properly. Some contracts were corrupt or poorly managed, and money was wasted.
The corruption problem
One major scandal involved the consulting firm McKinsey, which worked with Eskom and another state company, Transnet. The firm was accused of taking part in corrupt deals worth millions of dollars, earning about R1.48 billion in the process, and later agreed to pay back over R1.2 billion.
Other problems include stolen coal, fake suppliers, and sabotage at power stations. Every time something like this happens, Eskom loses money—and South Africans pay for it through higher prices or more power cuts.
What it means for ordinary South Africans
When Eskom fails, the whole country suffers. Load-shedding affects small businesses, hospitals, schools, and even water supply in some areas. It stops factories from running, scares investors away, and slows the economy.
According to Bloomberg, many municipalities also owe Eskom billions of rand for electricity they’ve already used, which makes it even harder for the company to recover.
So where did the billions go?
The money was meant to fix Eskom, but most of it went to pay off old debt and cover daily costs—not real improvements. That means South Africans have paid to keep a broken system alive instead of rebuilding it.
Instead of real change, Eskom got short-term help again and again. The same people and systems that caused the problems were often left in charge. Even when corruption was exposed, very few were punished.
The questions no one is answering
Who is responsible for all the money that disappeared?
Why did the government keep giving bailouts without demanding real change?
Can Eskom ever recover without starting over?
What can be done
Eskom’s problems can’t be solved by throwing more money at it. South Africa needs clear accountability, open contracts, and new leadership focused on rebuilding trust. Transparency—showing the public where every rand goes—is the only way to stop history from repeating itself.
Eskom’s story is not just about electricity. It’s about how a country’s most important company can fall apart when people stop being honest, when oversight fails, and when those in charge forget that public money is not theirs to waste.
