The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) recently ruled that the state-owned electricity utility Eskom must disclose its contracts with coal and diesel suppliers. This is a major victory for transparency in a sector that has long been marked by secrecy, financial instability and weak public trust.
Eskom generates about 90% of the country’s electricity, mainly through burning coal it buys from South Africa’s coal mines. The utility spends R70bn a year on coal and its transport alone, but its contracts with mines have been kept hidden.
The case began in 2024 when the high court ordered Eskom to disclose all its coal and diesel contracts. This didn’t happen because Eskom appealed the ruling.
However, on March 23 2026, the SCA dismissed the appeal, saying vague claims of commercial secrecy are not enough when the public asks how the power utility spends public money, and Eskom would have to make all active coal and diesel contracts public.
The new ruling could become one of the most important electricity transparency decisions in years. Though the case was brought by AfriForum, a pressure group that works to advance the rights of Afrikaners, the ruling is important for society as a whole.
[ Double whammy for consumers as Eskom tariffs rise tooOpens in new window ]
South Africa has an access to information law that gives people a right to apply for and receive state records. Eskom is state-owned. It is worth mentioning that over the past 20 years, the government guaranteed about R35bn of Eskom’s debt, and eventually took over R230bn of its debt. When billions in public money are spent, secrecy becomes hard to defend ethically and legally.
I research electricity governance, administrative law, constitutional accountability and the right to electricity. South Africa has an electricity crisis marked by supply shortages, rising costs, weak public trust and persistent concerns about how decisions are made.
Resolving the electricity crisis is more than about supply. It is also about transparency, trust and fair decision-making. This recent judgment strengthens that same idea.
Why Eskom lost the court case
The judges pointed out that coal and diesel prices are widely known. They also emphasised Eskom buys the fuels through open, competitive tender processes. Once a contract is awarded through an open tender process, it becomes much harder to say the price and terms are genuinely secret.
The court also rejected the idea that disclosure would damage Eskom’s future bargaining position or make collusion more likely. Eskom’s argument was essentially that if suppliers knew what had been agreed in existing contracts, this could affect future negotiations or encourage co-ordinated conduct in future tenders.
However, Eskom did not show this with concrete facts. It mostly offered broad warnings.
That was not enough for the court. This part of the ruling matters because it confirms the basic principle that when a public body holds information, openness is mandatory by default. Secrecy is the exception, and it must be justified.
Why the ruling matters beyond this case
The ruling means it will become more difficult for Eskom, and perhaps other organs of state, to hide important public interest documents behind vague claims of commercial harm. This matters in a country where trust in electricity governance is low. Eskom has been shadowed by years of financial trouble and serious corruption allegations. In this context public scrutiny is not a luxury. It is part of accountability.
I’ve written before about how, in late October 2025, the court ruled the process used by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa to decide yearly electricity price hikes was unconstitutional because it stifled public participation and violated the right to fair administrative action.
[ Doing the right thing: Rectifying report on Eskom procurementOpens in new window ]
The problem the court found was that the cost of supplying electricity, on which price hikes are based, was hidden from the public. The energy regulator is also supposed to calculate price hikes in a way that allows public input. Secrecy means people affected by high electricity prices didn’t get a chance to state their views.
In the latest case the issue is fuel contracts. Different documents, same principle: when the public cannot see the records behind electricity decisions, it cannot properly test whether those decisions are lawful, fair or sensible.
The latest judgment also speaks to the wider move of South Africans away from the grid. More households and businesses are looking for solar and battery options because the formal system is unreliable and costly.
However, going off-grid is not a solution for everyone. Most South Africans depend on Eskom and municipalities. Eskom distributes electricity directly to many homes, businesses and other users, while municipalities purchase bulk electricity from Eskom and resell it within their own areas. That makes transparency in the main system even more important.
What the judgment changes, and what it does not
The court did not say every Eskom document must always be released to the public. There will be cases where confidentiality is justified. But it did say a public body cannot use the words “commercial sensitivity” and end the conversation. It must show, with real facts, why disclosure would cause them economic harm.
The judges also did not need to rely on the law’s public interest safety valve. Put simply, that is a rule that can require a record to be disclosed if the public interest in seeing the record is strong enough, even where there may be other legal reasons to keep it secret. Eskom had failed at the earlier step of showing the contracts deserved to stay secret. That makes the ruling stronger. It means the court treated openness as the ordinary rule, not a special favour.
South Africans have a constitutional right to electricity. It’s closely tied to dignity, housing, water, health and basic economic life. If it is that important, the public has a strong claim to know how the utility responsible for it spends public money.
For that reason, this is not only a win in one court case. It is a reminder that in a constitutional democracy, the public should not be asked to pay for an electricity system it cannot properly scrutinise.
• Felix Dube is a lecturer in the department of public law at the University of Venda
• This article was first published in The Conversation.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.