Johannesburg – South Africa’s Black Business Council (BBC) has called for the resignation of embattled power utility Eskom’s CEO, Andre de Ruyter.
The BBC said in a statement that despite congratulating him when he was appointed as Eskom’s head in 2019, de Ruyter and his board of directors should step down due to their inability to resolve the prolonged electricity 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,” Kganki Matabane, the CEO of the BBC, said.
The BBC further stated that it is of the view that the country should acknowledge that the Eskom leadership is completely overwhelmed, inept and out of its depth.
“They simply don’t seem to be able to have a handle on this crisis and as such, should be let go as there appear to be no prospect in sight for any improvement of this serious situation,” the BBC further stated.
President Ramaphosa, when outlining government’s economic recovery plans, confirmed the dependency of the pace of economic recovery on ability to resolve energy crisis swiftly when he said, “We know that resolving the energy supply shortfall and reducing the risk of load shedding is our single most important objective in reviving economic growth because there is no economy that can really grow without energy security.”
The country, which is very understanding and not unreasonably demanding, is looking for a predictable rooster with a proper and realistic period of when the problem will be finally resolved so that businesses and all residents can plan their lives accordingly, the BBC said.
“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 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 world record-breaking unemployment rate, further economic contraction and scaring of international investors” Matabane further said.
The BBC said it has called an urgent meeting with the President and the Minister of Public Enterprises to discuss the matter further.
On Monday, Eskom announced that it will be placing the country under stage 4 loadshedding.
Eskom, warned South Africans that stage 4 load shedding will be implemented from 1 pm on Monday through to 5am on Friday.
Stage 2 load shedding would then be implemented until further notice.
Eskom said that the increase in the rolling blackouts was necessary to curb the remaining emergency generation reserves after it was used extensively on Monday morning as it was not getting the reduction in demand as expected from stage two power cuts.
Eskom added that seven generation units had not returned to service as anticipated and that a unit at the Arnot power station had tripped on Monday morning, adding to the shortages.
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