Calib Cassim: Five things you need to know about Eskom’s new interim CEO

Eskom’s newly-appointed interim CEO Calib Cassim has been working for the power utility for years and led a team to improve the financial state of the enterprise. 

On Friday morning Eskom announced Cassim as its interim group CEO after the abrupt exit of André de Ruyter on Wednesday. 

Here are five things you need to know about Cassim: 

He led a team dealing with Eskom’s money matters  

Cassim is a qualified chartered accountant and was permanently appointed as Eskom’s CFO in November 2018 after acting in the position for a year.

He has more than 20 years of service in Eskom.

For the past five years his role has been to provide oversight on the enterprise’s money matters and implement financial strategies to make Eskom profitable.

Cassim also holds a master’s degree in business leadership (MBL)

He knows all about tariffs

Cassim has been at the forefront of Eskom’s team determining electricity price increases.

His department has been responsible for applying for electricity price hikes to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

While the entity over the years had not been granted all requests for tariff increases, he has tried to pursue higher prices on Nersa applications, stating that this was imperative to improve the company’s finances.  

Sunday Times recently reported Cassim warned that if the power utility was prevented from raising revenue through increased tariffs its finances could turn into a “national fiscal crisis”.

Cassim was responding to the DA’s court challenge to the recent decision by Nersa that Eskom is entitled to recover R318bn from its customers in 2023/24 and R352bn the year after.

The DA wanted the court to urgently interdict the decision, which it said would mean a more than 30% increase in the electricity tariffs over the next two years. 

Oversaw revenue improvement and targeted municipality debt

Last December, Eskom reported its annual results showed improvement in financial performance. However, it continued to have problems with infrastructure and high debt levels.

The entity said revenue increased to R246.5bn due to a 15.06% tariff increase, supported by 3.4% growth in sales.  

Speaking about the annual results, Cassim said the entity was not making enough money to pay its debt despite receiving R31.7bn support from government in 2022. 

“Cash from operations remained insufficient to meet debt servicing and some capital investment requirements,” he said. 

Cassim also raised concerns that municipalities’ debts were a heavy burden on the entity. Last year in March this figure was R44.8bn. 

“The overdue debt by municipalities must be resolved. A net loss after tax of about R20bn is expected for the financial year ending March 31 2023.

“This is mainly attributable to OCGT [open cycle gas turbine power stations that primarily use diesel] spend exceeding the Nersa allowance, growth in municipal arrears and a shortfall in recovering debt service costs in the electricity tariffs.” 

Not scared to name and shame

Under Cassim’s leadership, Eskom undertook a public “name and shame” revenue collection strategy mainly directed at municipalities owing Eskom millions. 

The City of Johannesburg, Emfuleni and Ekurhuleni municipalities have been among those Eskom publicly called out to pay their debts.

Last August Eskom threatened to disconnect power to the City of Tshwane municipality after constant delays in account payments.  

Eskom said the Tshwane metro was in breach of the electricity supply agreement and failed to pay its R1.6bn debt. 

The entity said inconsistent payments worsened Eskom’s financial position and placed a burden on it to continue providing municipalities with electricity.  

Talks tough on cable theft and infrastructure vandalism

Cassim has previously described vandalism of electricity infrastructure and cable theft as “economic sabotage of the highest degree” on the power utility.   

This after 14 suspects were arrested for alleged cable theft, including a scrap metal dealer, in Mpumalanga last year. 

“This is economic sabotage of the highest degree, and the perpetrators of such crimes must be brought to book and dealt with by the full might of the law. Customers pay the price for such crimes through increased tariffs.  

“We will pursue the investigations together with the Hawks and intensify operations against the syndicates, ensuring they are disrupted.”  

According to Eskom the power utility and the state entities Transnet, Prasa and Telkom suffered financial losses of more than R7bn a year due to vandalism.

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