{"id":872862,"date":"2026-08-31T15:11:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T13:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=872862"},"modified":"2026-08-31T15:11:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T13:11:51","slug":"end-of-a-24-year-era-at-eskom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/872862\/end-of-a-24-year-era-at-eskom\/","title":{"rendered":"End of a 24-year era at Eskom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eskom’s Chief Financial Officer, Calib Cassim, will be retiring during the financial year ending March 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes as Eskom reported its annual financial results for the 2026 financial year ended 31 March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cassim has been at Eskom for 24 years, including one year where he acted as Group Chief Executive following the rocky departure of former CEO, Andre de Ruyter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He started at Eskom in 2002 as chief advisor for financial planning and regulation, before being appointed general manager for financial planning and regulation in 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stayed in the role until 2017, when he became Chief Financial Officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cassim served as acting group chief executive between 2023 and 2024, after which he reverted to the CFO post under the leadership of current CEO, Dan Marokane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before his time at Eskom, he worked as a financial manager at Standard Bank’s Credit Card Division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Board has initiated a succession process to ensure a smooth leadership transition and expresses its sincere appreciation for his contribution to Eskom,” said the utility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Board is managing the recruitment process for the incoming GCFO with a clear schedule and timelines, with the aim of having the successful candidate take office before the end of the 2026 calendar year.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its latest annual results, the utility recorded a profit of about R30.35 billion for the 2026 financial year, more than doubling its R14 billion profit from the previous year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This increase in revenue and profits occurred despite a decline in sales, suggesting that fewer customers paid higher rates, resulting in a mismatch between sales and revenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom highlighted that a 12.74% tariff increase was partially counteracted by a 6.2% decline in sales over the year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recognising this discrepancy, Eskom stated that this situation is unsustainable and emphasised that future revenue growth will require both retaining demand and diversifying its revenue streams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTariff increases alone cannot secure Eskom\u2019s future,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group stated that its improved generation availability has created a new opportunity. For the first time in over a decade, this enhanced capacity has resulted in an estimated surplus of 2-3 GW. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This positions the group to attract new demand rather than ration supply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No load shedding for over a year<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eskom also pointed out that its increase in profitability was somewhat skewed by substantial fuel levy refunds in FY2025, which totalled R14.2 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it highlighted that its underlying costs decreased by R11.5 billion when excluding the fuel levy effect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This reduction was made possible by more reliable, cheaper generation, thereby displacing Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the sole generator and distributor for South Africa\u2019s national grid, the state-owned company has faced various challenges in recent years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group has historically struggled to meet the country\u2019s energy demands adequately, leading to load shedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa has not experienced load shedding for over a year, which Eskom has attributed to improved generation capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its latest financial results, the energy supplier saw its revenue rise to R355 billion\u2014roughly R14 billion higher than in 2025\u2014and its EBITDA to R108.6 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The improvements in both revenue and profit have resulted from enhanced efficiency within the company, leading to an increase in its Electricity Availability Factor (EAF). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EAF is a crucial metric that measures Eskom’s efficiency in generating electricity; a higher score indicates fewer breakdowns and less unplanned maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For 2026, Eskom reported an EAF of 65.16%, which is approximately five percentage points higher than the previous year. However, this figure still fell short of Eskom’s target for the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom’s Chief Financial Officer, Calib Cassim, will be retiring, with the hunt for his replacement already underway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":779410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2094412905919766731","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2191920274961705","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17903587479549596","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[20110,1164],"class_list":["post-872862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-calib-cassim","tag-eskom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872862","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\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872862"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":872880,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872862\/revisions\/872880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}