THE Black Business Council has called for the resignation of Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter and other senior executives after another round of stage 4 load shedding hit the country this week.
In a statement published on Monday evening, the group said that while it was initially hopeful for de Ruyter’s tenure, it is now calling for him and the entire Eskom board to step down due to their inability to stop the prolonged energy blackouts.
“The BBC was overly optimistic when de Ruyter was appointed as Eskom needed stability but has since realised that two years later, the country has nothing to show but the highest number of blackouts in the history of our beloved South Africa,” said Kganki Matabane, chief executive of the council.
He added that the entire Eskom leadership is wholly overwhelmed, inept and out of its depth.
“The country has been experiencing the blackouts since 2008, and 13 years later, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The continuous excuse of blaming the state capture instead of solving the current problem, while it could have been valid, is disingenuous and tired.
“The inability to stabilise Eskom will only lead to the country being downgraded, resulting in the increase in the already record-breaking unemployment rate, further economic contraction and scaring of international investors,” he said.
The council’s statement comes after Eskom announced that it will be moving to stage 4 load shedding until 05h00 on Saturday.
“While Eskom regrets the escalation in load shedding, it is necessary to ration the remaining emergency generation reserves which have been utilised extensively this morning as we are not getting the reduction in demand as expected from the implementation of stage 2 load shedding.
“It was anticipated that an additional seven units would have returned to service by Monday, and this has not materialised. Further, a generating unit at Arnot power station tripped this morning, contributing to the shortages.”
De Ruyter said on Tuesday that he is not going anywhere, saying only the board can decide if it wants him out.
“We serve at the pleasure and discretion of our board, of course, if the board considers it appropriate for me and other people to resign then that is their decision to make,” he said.
“We have not had any conversations in that regard so far and I do not intend to resign of my own accord.”
Eskom has warned in a summer load shedding forecast for 2021/2022 that its system is likely to remain severely constrained for the near future.
In a virtual media briefing on Tuesday, de Ruyter said that the country is set to move to stage 3 load shedding at 05h00 on Wednesday, and should move to stage 2 load shedding on Friday. Following this, Eskom is hopeful that load shedding will be completely lifted on Saturday, he said.
Commenting on the latest breakdowns, De Ruyter said that for the last 24 months Eskom management has consistently signalled that there is a lack of capacity in the country and that at least another 6,000MW of power will be needed to be added to the grid.
He said that the latest REIPP bid window should assist with this, but that Eskom is in a liquidity-constrained position which makes it difficult to enter into long-term contracts to deal with these power outages.
“A recent new challenge that has reared its head, which is quite unfortunate, is that some municipalities have not played their role in introducing load shedding,” he said.
“During stage 2, some municipalities did not follow the required schedules or only implemented fractional load shedding over the required period – this is what led to the increase in stage 2 load shedding to stage 4.”
He said that Eskom has also seen breakdowns at its Matimba, Kendal, Medupi and Koeberg plants which have hindered performance. He added that Lethabo, historically one of Eskom’s most reliable power plants, has also experienced problems over the last week.
