(Reuters) – South Africa’s struggling state power company Eskom said on Wednesday it made a 1.6 billion rand ($84 million) profit after tax in the first six months of its financial year to the end of September.
The debt-laden utility has this year implemented the worst power cuts on record in Africa’s most industrialised economy.
“Eskom cautions that despite achieving a profit in the first six months, an after-tax loss of 23.2 billion rand is expected by the end of the financial year,” it added in a statement.
Eskom cited poor generating plant performance, tariffs which it says do not allow it to fully recover its costs, high debt servicing costs and non-payment by some customers among reasons for the projected full-year loss.
($1 = 19.0557 rand)
(Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Mark Potter)
