Eskom CEO André de Ruyter is finding out the hard way that when you run a state-owned company in SA your ultimate employer is the ANC, destroyer of worlds, butcher of hope.
Now, in the middle of a grave crisis as the country has its face slammed into a black void for hours on end, as he scrambles to save power reserves in the middle of talks with unions prepared to extract pay concessions from him at literally any cost to the country, he will know for sure who he serves.
His minister can’t help him. Pravin Gordhan at the department of public enterprises (DPE) is politically isolated. His lifeline is the president, Cyril Ramaphosa. He doesn’t talk to his deputy at the DPE, Phumulo Masualle, a former Eastern Cape premier who Ramaphosa made a deputy minister for “unity” after his ally, Oscar Mabuyane, unseated him in provincial elections five years ago.
No help there, then, and Gordhan’s director-general, Kgathatso Tlhakudi, has just been suspended, after falling out with the minister, but hasn’t been at work for two months. There is no-one at the top of the DPE who knows anything technical about electricity.
The same would apply to the presidency. Ramaphosa’s office is famously junior and inexperienced, largely unable to help him avoid political train smashes such as the leaking of evidence that he may have tried to cover up a cash heist at a game farm he owns in Limpopo.
A once serious economy, SA is being reduced to a shadow of its former self
I’ve just watched a few videos of Ramaphosa talking about Eskom.
From March 2015, talking about Eskom in parliament: “I’d like to assure all South Africans that we are addressing this problem and it’s quite a complex problem. It’s not yesterday’s problem. It emanates from our past and it needs to be addressed with cool heads, with strong will, knowing that we will overcome this problem [of load-shedding].”
From ANC birthday celebrations in January 2020, just after the late Jabu Mabuza had resigned as Eskom chair in the wake of load-shedding over the summer holidays: “We are going to strengthen Eskom so that it can deliver energy as it should. We understand very clearly the concerns that South Africans have about load-shedding. These are challenges that we will succeed in addressing. Eskom is the largest company in our country. It is too big to fail. We will not allow Eskom to fail.”
The promise to “strengthen” Eskom is juicy. After Mabuza resigned, Gordhan, with Ramaphosa approving, appointed a medical academic, Malegapuru Makgoba, then lead independent director on the Eskom board, as acting chair. He also knew nothing about electricity. I was assured he would be in the job a few weeks at most. But this is the ANC at work, “saving lives” and “addressing challenges”. Makgoba is still chair. When the DPE first tried to contact him as stage 6 load-shedding loomed, it couldn’t find him.
De Ruyter, the 13th Eskom CEO in a decade, is an accomplished executive and despite calls for him to resign has made some important advances. Eskom’s debt is down well over R100bn from the R480bn it had reached before he arrived. Staff numbers, about 46,600 when he arrived, are below 41,000. Both are considerable achievements.
That he can’t stop unions from behaving irresponsibly is not his fault. He has a mandate from his shareholder. The shareholder is the same government that put the army onto the streets to stop people buying beer and cigarettes two years ago, whose police patrolled the beaches to stop the spread of Covid.
You have to ask where the same police and the military were these past few days when Eskom union members petrol-bombed Eskom managers’ homes in illegal strikes that brought us to stage 6 and the brink of disaster. Is this not an emergency? A once serious economy, SA is being reduced to a vespertine shadow of its former self, care of the ANC, burning up to 112l of diesel a second to avoid a national blackout.
We remember it was then deputy president Thabo Mbeki who ignored Eskom’s advice in the late 1990s to build more power stations. He knew better. We remember that the ANC funding vehicle, Chancellor House, invested in Hitachi Africa and then gave it contracts to make boilers for Medupi and Kusile which didn’t work. We remember the rampant theft from Eskom while Ramaphosa was in charge of its “war room”.
Today we produce 30% less electricity per head of population than we did before 1994. Whichever faction you look at it from, the fact is the ANC has taken away our power. In 2024 we should try to find a way to unite and return the favour.
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