Bankrupt Eskom plans to spend millions on new logo
Eskom has launched a multi-million-rand tender to design a new company logo and develop a new corporate identity.
The Eskom tender document states it needs a new corporate identity to represent its new structure with three independent subsidiaries — Generation, Transmission, and Distribution.
Eskom asked agencies to apply to design, develop, and implement a new corporate identity for the entities below.
- National Transmission Company of South Africa
- National Distribution Company of South Africa
- Potential Eskom NewCo
- Any other Eskom Group of companies in the future
Although price details have not been disclosed, Eskom asked agencies who tendered for the project to assume a budget of R5 million per entity in their presentations.
This multi-million tender has extensive requirements, including designing a slew of printed and digital assets, marketing material, and online assets.
The cost of designing and executing a new logo and corporate identity for Eskom is only the tip of the iceberg.
To rebrand, a company has to change the logo on all its buildings, digital assets, printed materials, and much more. It will cost a fortune.
Ghaleb Cachalia, the DA’s public enterprises spokesperson, slated Eskom’s decision considering its financial position.
“Eskom has been bankrupt for a while now and has been kept afloat by taxpayer-funded bailouts, the most recent of which was the R254 billion Eskom debt takeover by the government – which will worsen the country’s already precarious debt burden,” he said.
“It is therefore simply astounding that Eskom sees a logo change as a priority when they are literally surviving on taxpayer money.”
Cachalia said the rebrand is a completely unnecessary vanity project that contributes nothing towards solving South Africa’s load-shedding crisis.
“Consumers are struggling to pay their electricity bills after Eskom imposed a 31,4% tariff increase over two years, yet Eskom sees it prudent to use their money for a new corporate logo.”
He called on the acting Eskom CEO, Calib Cassim, to immediately rescind this tender as it amounts to frivolous expenditure.
“With Eskom warning that load-shedding can be introduced on short notice, it is astounding that their priority is a logo change,” he said.
“Instead of looking to increase generation capacity and do away with load-shedding permanently, Eskom thinks it is necessary to focus on sprucing up their image.”
He said the millions associated with the logo and rebranding contract could be better spent elsewhere.
A version of this article was first published by Daily Investor and is reproduced with permission.