Former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has done South Africa a great service by giving accounts of ANC patronage at the heart of the power utility's breakdown. This can only be tackled by party leadership, not Eskom's management or board.
It was courageous and the foremost account of a state-owned entity (SOE) exposing ANC interests that have led to the collapse of almost every such entity, the public service and infrastructure.' Such patronage networks are the glue that unifies the ANC and its alliance partners. Party leadership has not acted because disrupting them will unleash a rebellion in the ANC.
So strong is ANC interest at Eskom that cutting off corruption, incompetence and crime — and introducing the shock therapy needed to right it — will break the organisation.
The ANC leadership expects Eskom CEOs to reform the entity while leaving alone its patronage and criminal networks, and not cutting jobs, supplanting coal with renewables or reducing its monopoly on energy. This is impossible.
If the ANC challenges De Ruyter in court for laying bare corruption, or if his accusations are genuinely investigated by police, it is likely to bring a magnifying glass to the scourge.
This may implicate more ANC leaders and unleash fallout in the party that is likely to devour it from within as the networks that hold it together, fed by party leadership to retain unity, loosen.
The ANC may even split on the back of a court challenge regarding De Ruyter’s accusations. Instead of taking responsibility for the rot at Eskom, accumulated over decades, not under De Ruyter, the party blames him.
Every reform at Eskom depends on taking out an ANC group with vested interests. De Ruyter’s mistake was that, as an outsider, he did not understand that implementing even the smallest reform depends on ANC national leadership.
It is so obsessed with unity it is not interested in taking on such groupings because it will undermine party unity.
To be fair to him, neither the public nor ANC voters grasp just how deeply every facet of Eskom and many other SOEs have been captured by ANC vested interests, leaving executives and boards powerless to make headway.
ANC vested interests have run one of the most effective misinformation and disinformation campaigns in the post-apartheid era to hide deep-seated rot at Eskom and the extent of such interests there, while pretending a turnaround can be quick without tackling them
ANC vested interests have run one of the most effective misinformation and disinformation campaigns in the post-apartheid era to hide the rot at Eskom and the extent of such interests there, while pretending a turnaround can be quick without tackling them.
ANC vested interests and past executives have falsely claimed Eskom is like any other company — with a few tweaks it will be back to normal. Or that neglected coal-fired power stations can somehow be sweated more than is the case.
Even supposedly good intentions — to generate new capacity — have been corrupted, as seen in the attempt during Jacob Zuma's presidency to secure nuclear from Russia.
This would have indebted South Africa and enriched ANC vested interests. Minerals and energy minister Gwede Mantashe insists on getting Karpowership, the Turkish company which generates electricity from ship-mounted, gas-fired power plants, to ease power shortages. However, court challenges alleging corruption have stalled the deal.
Those peddling misinformation claim Eskom is not sweating its coal power stations because it wants to accelerate the transition from coal to renewables.
What they do not say is that Eskom envisaged, under Brian Molefe and Matshela Koko, adding 6,000MW to its generation capacity through renewables, but the two refused to sign contracts with independent power producers.
ANC leaders who demanded De Ruyter report corruption to the police know full well that few ANC-connected individuals have been investigated or prosecuted in this regard. Or that many whistleblowers have been assassinated.
Even the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), deployed to guard Eskom assets, has been largely ineffectual because the culprits are connected to ANC leadership factions.
Restructuring Eskom while the ANC is in power will necessitate restructuring the ANC.
No CEO or board will make headway in solving the power crisis without the full support of the ANC leadership in dismantling patronage networks at all levels.
•William Gumede is associate professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and author of 'Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times' (Tafelberg)
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