{"id":872774,"date":"2026-08-31T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=872774"},"modified":"2026-08-31T12:49:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:49:49","slug":"r85-million-payday-for-eskom-executives-as-the-average-salary-for-workers-sits-around-r1-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/872774\/r85-million-payday-for-eskom-executives-as-the-average-salary-for-workers-sits-around-r1-million\/","title":{"rendered":"The average Eskom employee earns R2,580 a day \u2013 with a R85 million payday for the bosses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eskom’s top executives received over R85 million in pay for 2026, with chief executive officer Dan Marokane scoring R12.2 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers were revealed in the group’s annual results for the year ending 31 March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marokane’s salary comprised a base salary of R9.54 million, up 6% from the R9 million base salary he received in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also received a short-term incentive (STI) bonus of R2.5 million for the year. However, Eskom noted that a R3.7 million STI is awaiting shareholder approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marokane’s approved total remuneration for the year, R12.2 million, was 4% higher than his total pay of R11.7 million in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group Chief Financial Officer Calib Cassim earned a larger payout than Marokane, with a total package of R13.5 million for the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included a sizeable R5.1 million ‘other’ payment, in addition to his R6.4 million base salary and R2 million STI bonus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other payment relates to long-service award, allowances, insurance cover and, where applicable, sign-on bonuses, Eskom said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The total payout for other exco members came to R57 million for the year, including R15.6 million in bonuses. Including former execs, the total hits R59.4 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is 17.6% higher than the R50.5 million paid to executives and former executives in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding its remuneration policies, Eskom said that managerial employees receive a guaranteed cost\u2011to\u2011company package that includes medical aid, pension, dread disease cover and group life benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October 2025, an average increase of 7% was implemented, comprising a guaranteed cost\u2011of\u2011living adjustment of 3% and a discretionary element to reward and retain top performers and to address income disparities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The employee STI scheme was continued in FY2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom said this scheme is designed to “drive operational excellence, retain critical skills and reinforce a high\u2011performance, ethical culture,” and is subject to strict qualification criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employees in Generation, NTCSA and Distribution are also eligible for monthly production bonuses, based on achieving operational performance targets to improve efficiency and operational productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Both schemes are self-funded and reward employees from financial and operational efficiencies,” Eskom said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Non-executive directors earned R26.1 million for the year, up 16.5% from the R22.4 million the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom chairman, Mteto Nyati, was the top earner among non-executive directors with total pay of R2.81 million (2025: R2.72 million)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom noted that non-executive directors receive compensation in the form of a fixed monthly retainer fee and capped per-meeting attendance fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Average pay at Eskom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to Eskom’s data, the average employee at the group earns R941,933 a year, with the median salary sitting lower at R858,580.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This works out to the average worker at the group earning around R2,580 a day, or a median of R2.350.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CEO Dan Marokane is the group’s top earner in terms of guaranteed and variable income, while the lowest earner gets paid R62,892.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a per-day basis, this is R32,985 versus R172 a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the top and bottom 5% of earners at the company, the top 5%\u2014which would include managers and executives\u2014have an average salary of around R2.2 million (R5,990 a day).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom 5% of earners earn an average salary of R162,036 per year (R444 a day), resulting in a top-to-bottom-5% remuneration gap ratio of around 13.5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom’s top executives received over R85 million in pay for 2026, as the group’s average salary to workers approaches the R1 million mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":842898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2094379936635142402","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2191822691638130","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[1164,4564],"class_list":["post-872774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-eskom","tag-salary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872774"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":872837,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872774\/revisions\/872837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}