PHUTI MOSOMANE
SACP has urged government and Eskom board to appoint a highly competent chief executive officer (CEO) who’ll turn-around the embattled power utility, resolve the energy crisis in South Africa and end load-shedding.
Despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s bold plans to stop load-shedding during the recent State of the Nation Address (SONA), the South African government is yet to resolve the ongoing energy crisis, which has also been a huge obstacle to economic growth.
“The turnaround of Eskom is an immediate imperative to resolve the energy crisis and end load-shedding. To this end, Eskom should ramp up the maintenance of its existing fleet of power stations to original equipment manufacturer specifications and increase its electric power generation capacity to make electricity available uninterruptedly,” SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo said on Friday.
“This will also require the completion of the Medupi and Kusile Power Station projects and new investment in Eskom to build greater productive capacity now and going forward than going back. A competent and adequately resourced focus on Eskom’s developmental mandate based on increasing its total productive capacity will reduce breakdowns and other system failures and improve its Energy Availability Factor.”
“This is what the workers and poor and the entire economy direly need to, among others, support existing employment and additional provision of work to reduce unemployment,” Mashilo said.
He said the government should strengthen the security of the entire infrastructure of Eskom as part of the energy’s national State of Disaster interventions.
Mashilo lambasted the outgoing Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter, saying that he nailed his colours to the mast in an interview with broadcaster eNCA on February 22, 2023.
In 2018, a year before he was appointed its CEO, Eskom’s Energy Availability Factor was approximately 72%.
De Ruyter leaves Eskom in February, and the power utility’s Energy Availability Factor has significantly fallen, down to around 58%.
“With De Ruyter at its helm, load-shedding has worsened because of this deterioration in Eskom’s productive capacity to generate and make electricity available.”
“Also, it is almost impossible to be convinced that de Ruyter is committed to fighting corruption. One reason for this is that he has been in the most powerful position of authority as Eskom’s CEO. In terms of South Africa’s anti-corruption law, a person in that position of authority is obliged to report any acts of corruption to the law enforcement authorities to act,” he added.
What must now follow, Mashilo argued, is for law enforcement authorities to investigate whether indeed de Ruyter had any knowledge of corruption activities at Eskom, which he did not report for law enforcement authorities to act.
“De Ruyter has to be held accountable for his failure to discharge his duties, should it be established that he indeed had such knowledge and did not report to the law enforcement authorities to act.”
The SACP said during the interview, De Ruyter came across as an Apartheid apologist who clearly appeared to be haunted “by the ghosts of apartheid oppressors like DF Malan, Hans Strijdom and Hendrik Verwoerd, to name but a few”.
“The hatred by the apartheid oppressors of the theory of liberation seems to weigh like a nightmare on de Ruyter’s mind,” said Mashilo.
“De Ruyter’s utterances fit in with the agenda of promoting private interests, among others to replace productive state capacity to generate electricity in the long run,” he said.
INSIDE POLITICS
