What do we want in our new Eskom boss?
Super organised, technically and financially brilliant, as tough as nails — and willing to do battle with the government and a ruling party desperate to make him a scapegoat.
Basically, you need to be mad.
And good luck recovering over R52 billion from municipalities and R4.7 billion owed by Soweto residents despite Eskom writing off R8 billion of their debt.
Outgoing Group CEO Andre de Ruyter who endured the madness at Megawatt Park for three years — two of them during the Covid-19 pandemic — seems to agree.
He says it’s damn “near impossible to do this job”.
What of heavily armed and organised gangs in the Mpumalanga coal belt who are sabotaging and stealing billions of rands from Eskom.
Add to that, relentless deaths and an inept shareholder that sees turnaround strategies as nice-to-have public relations stunts with no real commitment to implementation.
For De Ruyter the final straw was last week at the signing ceremony for 13 independent power projects when his boss — Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe — accused him of using load shedding to sabotage the current leadership.
“Eskom, by not attending to load shedding, is actively agitating for the overthrow of the state,” said Mantashe.
Industry analyst Dirk de Vos told Scrolla.Africa a level of madness is required to do the job.
“It has become an impossible job and its requirements cannot be fulfilled. The problem is that the government shareholder has never quite understood how Eskom works and what is wrong with it.”
“You have two ministers calling the shots; Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and Minister of Public Enterprises,” De Vos added.
The main challenges for the new CEO must be to turn around the company without new capital added to new projects.
The other challenge is repaying Eskom’s R400 billion debt without a significant increase in tariffs.
And the biggest challenge of all is political sabotage where organised gangs are allowed to loot and plunder with very little commitment by the government to apprehend them.
In just about every press conference, De Ruyter reiterated that he was not interested in the politics of the job.
Getting bogged down by the politics of his job would take his attention away from doing his job.
But in the end, it was the ANC government’s politics that threw him under the bus.
Pictured above: Eskom head office
Image source: @AfricaNews
