Eskom has made a profit. That is welcome. But before South Africa celebrates too loudly, we should ask a harder question: has Eskom truly turned around, or has the country merely been given a financial reprieve while the deeper governance disease remains untreated? The auditor-general’s (AG) latest report suggests caution. Eskom’s return to profit sits beside a qualified audit outcome, material misstatements, compliance findings, going-concern uncertainty, unresolved irregular expenditure concerns, weak internal controls and continued dependence on government support. A qualified audit outcome should not be treated as a footnote to a profit announcement. It is a warning that South Africa has not yet disciplined the power of the state shareholder. Eskom has been audited. The harder question is whether the state shareholder is prepared to submit itself to the same discipline of transparency, consequence management and accountability. That is the missing audit. The AG records Eskom achieved a profit before tax of R23.9bn in 2024/25, its first group profit since 2017. That matters. But the same report makes clear the profit was mainly due to tariff increases, higher sales volumes and decreased primary energy costs. This is progress. It is not proof of cure. A profit can be produced by tariffs, reduced diesel use, higher volumes, lower primary energy costs and operational discipline. Governance recovery requires something deeper: credible reporting, effective consequence management, lawful procurement, transparent shareholder oversight, accountable appointments and boards empowered to govern without political shadow management. The AG’s findings are stark. Several SOEs continue to face serious financial health concerns. Eskom and Transnet together carry liabilities nearing R866bn. That is why the AG’s report matters. It warns that the government is addressing institutional capability, governance and accountability weaknesses too slowly, poor-quality spending is not receiving urgent attention, non-compliance continues with little consequence, and irregular expenditure is too often downplayed as procedural or technical. That warning should land heavily in the state-owned enterprise (SOE) space. SOEs operate in critical sectors such as energy, transport, defence, finance and communications. Their performance affects infrastructure, growth, essential services, fiscal stability and strategic national assets. In 2024/25 the remaining 19 major SOEs were responsible for an estimated R514.59bn expenditure budget. The AG’s findings are stark. Several SOEs continue to face serious financial health concerns. Eskom and Transnet together carry liabilities nearing R866bn. SOEs remain heavily dependent on government guarantees, and Eskom alone carries significant guarantee exposure. Those numbers should end any temptation to treat SOE reform as an ordinary administrative file. In South Africa SOE failure is too often treated as a problem of boards and executives alone. That is convenient, but incomplete. Boards must account. Executives must account. Officials must account. However, where ministers, departments and political actors influence appointments, strategy, funding, restructuring, shareholder compacts, procurement climates and bailout decisions, the state shareholder cannot remain outside the accountability frame. This is the blind spot in South Africa’s SOE governance model. The state is not merely a shareholder. It is also policymaker, funder, guarantor, regulator, political principal and, at times, informal operator. When those roles blur, accountability becomes elastic. Everyone has influence. Few carry consequences. This is precisely the problem my doctoral research examined. Boards of SOEs do not govern as a favour from the shareholder ministry. Their authority is statutory, original and vested by company law. Their fiduciary duties are owed to the company, not to political convenience. Yet state shareholder representatives may influence the environment in which boards operate without bearing equivalent fiduciary discipline. They may shape appointments, strategy, mandates, funding expectations and political pressure, and remove boards when companies fail, even where failure was produced by shareholder overreach. That contradiction sits at the centre of the SOE crisis. The Zondo state capture commission inquiry understood the risk. It exposed how SOEs became vulnerable to manipulation through appointments, removals, procurement influence and weak oversight. The government itself accepted the need for appointment processes that are not open to manipulation. The question is no longer whether South Africa knows what went wrong. The question is why reform remains so slow. Eskom is not the only signal. Public Companies Tribunal decisions on AGM-extension applications show SOE accountability can be delayed by unresolved annual financial statements, audit challenges, going-concern concerns, shareholder dependencies, board and audit committee vacancies and business rescue-related reporting backlogs. These decisions are not findings of wrongdoing. They show that when reporting, audit, governance and shareholder actions do not move with discipline, the AGM — a core mechanism through which boards account — is delayed. That is why reform is urgent. The question is no longer whether South Africa knows what went wrong. The question is why reform remains so slow. The National State Enterprises Bill was introduced in January 2024. Its stated purpose includes creating a national strategy for state enterprises, establishing State Asset Management SOC Ltd, consolidating state shareholdings, providing for shareholder powers, and creating monitoring and reporting mechanisms. Those are important ambitions. But the public cannot be expected to infer urgency from silence. The 2026 state of the nation address referred to improving SOE governance, implementing appointment standards, moving towards a centralised SOE model and finalising the bill. But it gave no clear public timetable, implementation dashboard, explanation of delay or account of how the bill will address the AG’s warnings. South Africa does not suffer from a shortage of warnings. The AG has warned. The state capture commission warned. Parliament has warned. Researchers have warned. Citizens have paid through bailouts, load-shedding, tariffs, service failures, lost jobs, lost investment and diminished public trust. The problem is no longer diagnosis. The problem is the state’s willingness to discipline its own power. A serious SOE reform agenda must clarify that boards exercise original statutory authority, insulate appointments and removals from political manipulation, define shareholder powers with precision, prevent shareholder representatives from drifting into operations, and extend meaningful accountability to those who exercise shareholder influence without director-level consequences. Eskom’s profit may mark progress. But it should not sedate the public into believing SOE governance has been fixed. The AG has audited Eskom. Now the state shareholder must be audited too. South Africa has had enough warnings. What is missing is urgency. • Dr Tong-Mongalo is a commercial law scholar whose doctoral research examined the original powers of boards in state-owned companies and the accountability gap created when state shareholder representatives influence SOE governance without equivalent fiduciary discipline.