AMABHUNGANE: UPDATE: Eskom admits to R3-billion in payments ‘outside of contractual terms’

Eskom released the results of its 18-month investigation into R21-billion worth of diesel contracts, but failed to make a full and frank disclosure.

In a seven-page press release on Thursday night, 27 August 2026, Eskom conceded it had made R3-billion in irregular payments to its diesel suppliers. It stopped short of calling these prepayments – as amaBhungane’s investigation has alleged – instead referring to “advanced payments” and “payments outside of contractual terms”.

The flurry of payments was made to three suppliers between January and April 2025, when Eskom was faced with a return of load shedding.

“The period between January and March 2025 placed significant demands on the power system and required rapid operational responses and difficult decisions by employees and executives to maintain security of supply and protect grid stability,” Eskom CEO Dan Marokane said in the statement. “However, operational pressures do not diminish our obligation to comply fully with internal controls and governance requirements.”

Eskom said that it had occasionally made prepayments to diesel suppliers in the past to stave off load shedding, adding: “This may have contributed to advance payment being viewed as an available operational mechanism. However, previous use did not remove the requirement to obtain the prescribed approval or, where action was taken before approval, to complete the required ratification promptly thereafter as per governance processes for handling emergencies.”

What made the prepayments more controversial in this case is that they were channelled to three relatively obscure suppliers who were already struggling to deliver fuel at the pace Eskom needed.

In its statement, Eskom stressed that it was between a rock and a hard place: “Eskom faced a choice between enabling suppliers to rapidly source and move fuel into Eskom’s diesel supply chain or accepting a materially greater risk of prolonged higher stages of load shedding.”

Yet amaBhungane’s latest investigation suggests that prepayments were ineffective at guaranteeing a reliable supply of diesel to Ankerlig.

Minutes from a high-level meeting on 23 February 2025, when Eskom was in the grip of stage 6 load shedding, quote Eskom’s head of generation, Bheki Nxumalo, as saying: “Obviously we’re not happy… these current contractors are just not performing at the levels that we want to see… It’s just too slow.”

By this point, Eskom had already made four prepayments to its diesel suppliers. In the days that followed, one provider, Severino Industries, received another two prepayments: for R379-million and R473-million.

Eskom has not addressed this contradiction, one of many issues glossed over in the press release.

Eskom said that aside from the R3-billion in what appear to be irregular payments made on the current contract, it had also identified R38-billion in irregular expenditure on the previous diesel contracts, which came to an end in December 2024.

“The irregular expenditure relates to expenditure incurred without obtaining approvals from the relevant delegated authority.