{"id":651188,"date":"2026-06-03T12:02:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=651188"},"modified":"2026-06-03T12:03:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:03:49","slug":"eskom-cannot-hide-salary-details-from-south-africans-any-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/651188-eskom-cannot-hide-salary-details-from-south-africans-any-longer.html","title":{"rendered":"Eskom cannot hide salary details from South Africans any longer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Eskom will need to provide a much more detailed breakdown of its employee remuneration after the new provisions of the Companies Amendment Act came into operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First signed into law in July 2024, the Companies Act 16 of 2024 and Companies Second Amendment Act 17 of 2024 brought sweeping changes to corporate regulations, including employment matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a National Government gazette on 22 May 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa gave immediate effect to additional sections of Act 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new sections 30A and 30B prescribe significant changes for public companies&#8217; remuneration disclosures and approvals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new laws dictate that these companies must prepare a prospective remuneration policy to be approved by shareholders at an annual general meeting (AGM) every three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to the approved remuneration policy, state-owned companies&#8217; remuneration reports will need to have a background statement and an implementation report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The implementation report is required to contain several pieces of remuneration data that Eskom has omitted in its integrated annual reports and other publicly available documents, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Total remuneration of the highest-paid and lowest-paid employees.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Average and median total remuneration of all employees.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A remuneration gap ratio, reflecting the ratio between the total remuneration of the top 5% highest-paid employees and the total remuneration of the bottom 5% lower-paid employees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The implementation report also requires state-owned companies to report the total remuneration of each director and prescribed officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those are the only figures that Eskom currently divulges at a per-employee level in its integrated annual report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While many other state-owned entities also don&#8217;t share highly detailed employee salary information, several go well beyond Eskom&#8217;s data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The power utility provides minimal remuneration information. It only provides its total employee cost and the staff count. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Therefore, analysts and the media are forced to use a simple calculation for some indication of an average: dividing the total wage bill by the number of employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In its 2025 financial year, Eskom&#8217;s average annual cost per employee was R1.26 million excluding executives and board members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Huge increase in bonuses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"676\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Eskom-coal-worker-1200x676.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-641613\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Eskom-coal-worker-1200x676.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Eskom-coal-worker-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Eskom-coal-worker-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Eskom-coal-worker-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Eskom-coal-worker.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Eskom worker attending to the coal conveyor belt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom has criticised news publications and analysts for reporting this as its average remuneration, arguing it is not reflective of what workers on the ground really earn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Solidarity secretary-general Gideon du Plessis <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/644876-unionised-eskom-workers-earn-an-average-of-r38150-per-month.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/644876-unionised-eskom-workers-earn-an-average-of-r38150-per-month.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">recently revealed<\/a> that the average remuneration of Eskom&#8217;s bargaining unit, which makes up over two-thirds of its workforce, was about R457,800 per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom also argued its remuneration must be viewed in the context of the organisation&#8217;s &#8220;evolution&#8221; since 1990. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Increases in remuneration reflect this shift in workforce composition, compliance with modern labour legislation, and the need to retain critical skills to sustain reliable electricity supply,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom has refused to provide more detailed breakdowns of its employee remuneration, including salary bands, median salaries, or average salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom said its remuneration and benefits framework was designed to attract, retain and motivate a skilled and high-performing workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Our approach balances financial sustainability with the need to reward excellence and support employee wellbeing.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Our remuneration strategy is underpinned by principles of fairness, transparency and alignment with Eskom&#8217;s turnaround objectives and subject to the conditions of the Eskom Debt Relief Act, 2023.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Between its 2024 and 2026 financial years, Eskom&#8217;s employee remuneration <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/651011-average-salaries-at-eskom-set-to-exceed-r1-1-million.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/651011-average-salaries-at-eskom-set-to-exceed-r1-1-million.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">increased 37%<\/a>, mainly due to short-term incentives and production bonuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The average bonus paid per employee was R128,000, more than what most South Africans earned in a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Eskom has defended the remuneration as justified when considering the improved performance of its generating fleet, economist Dawie Roodt has likened this to &#8220;praising a duck for swimming.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roodt said the main reason load-shedding has ended is due to a reduction in demand, driven by an increase in private electricity generation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He argued that load-shedding should never have happened and that <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/629823-dawie-roodt-says-eskom-workers-must-get-a-pay-cut.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/629823-dawie-roodt-says-eskom-workers-must-get-a-pay-cut.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Eskom workers were mostly overpaid<\/a> and underworked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Democratic Alliance MP Kevin Mileham also recently called on Ramokgopa to intervene in what he dubbed &#8220;exorbitant&#8221; payouts and to redirect funds toward lowering the cost of electricity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom will need to provide a much more detailed breakdown of its employee remuneration after new provisions of the Companies Amendment Act came into operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":645557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27995],"tags":[104968,181,79988,102043,69615,143,104276,82503],"class_list":["post-651188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-companies-amendment-act-16-of-2024","tag-eskom","tag-eskom-workers","tag-gideon-du-plessis","tag-kevin-mileham","tag-solidarity","tag-state-workers","tag-state-owned-companies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651188"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651501,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651188\/revisions\/651501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}