text: 2023 de Ruyter interview In late February 2023 then Eskom CEO André de Ruyter gave a controversial interview with E.tv during which he stated that Eskom was losing roughly R1 billion (US$ 53.9 million) a month due to theft and corruption. De Ruyter attributed this to the presence within Eskom of four criminal syndicates and went on to state that a senior - although unnamed - ANC MP was involved and that government did not have the political will to resolve the situation. This resulted in de Ruyter's immediate resignation on 22 February 2023 from his position as CEO amidst criticism from the ANC. The Daily Maverick quoted an intelligence report that named the four criminal syndicates within Eskom as "the Presidential Cartel, the Mesh-Kings Cartel, the Legendaries Cartel and the Chief Cartel."
  Price increases
  Eskom took out a number of loans to construct the additional capacity and significantly increased electrical tariffs by an average of 22% a year between 2007 and 2015 to in an attempt to offset costs. In 2019 Eskom controversially applied to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) to increase tariffs by an additional 45% over the proceeding three years arguing that it needs the increase in revenue to avoid a debt induced death spiral. Eskom was controversially granted a 13.8% increase by NERSA in March 2019. The South African civil society Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) stated that by 2019 Eskom's electrical tariffs had increased by 500% over the previous 11 years. Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity stated that the increased tariffs will exacerbate urban poverty negating increases to South Africa's basic income grant.