News that Eskom was forced to lean on the National Treasury in April to avert an imminent liquidity crisis, arising from a delay in a loan disbursement from the China Development Bank, served to underline the precarious state of the group’s finances. The debt-laden State-owned utility is broke, notwithstanding ongoing fiscal support and several above-inflation tariff hikes over the past decade and a bit. The mini bail-out also highlighted the fact that there is simply no way for Eskom to trade itself out of its current financial difficulties. Restructuring is not only urgent, it’s inevitable.