Most South Africans do not believe Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter has the technical capability to run the power utility, ANC head of economic transformation Mmamoloko Kubayi has said.
Kubayi, who is head of the cabinet economic cluster, said the executives of state-owned entities (SOEs) needed to assure the nation that they are capable of rebuilding the entities following years of state capture.
“For us, it is about ensuring there is energy security and that we can protect the economy. What is also critical is that the leadership at our SOEs must be able to give confidence in rebuilding the institutions from the demise of state capture. I do believe that the majority of South Africans didn’t believe that as CEO, De Ruyter had the technical capacity to give such confidence,” Kubayi said in an interview with this paper yesterday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the ANC’s 55th national conference at the Nasrec Expo Centre, Kubayi said the failure to treat Eskom and its plants as national key points, and the disruption of emergency procurement, were some of the issues that contributed to the woes plaguing Eskom.
“Focus on maintenance is critical, (as is) appointment of key technical leadership and lastly deployment of police/soldiers to protect the assets,” she said.
De Ruyter resigned on Wednesday following a harsh bout of stage six loadshedding that has disrupted the country’s economy and ordinary lives of citizens.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana decried the economic damage caused by the loadshedding, saying it was stunting economic recovery.
“Loadshedding is impacting negatively (on the economy). About 40% of our underperformance is attributed to electricity. And if we had reliable electricity, this economy would move very fast,” he said.
Godongwana said Treasury was still engaging the power utility on the conditions if the government were to take some of its the R400-billion debt. Details of the debt takeover will be announced during the budget speech in February, he said.
“As part of that engagement, we will explore different questions including how they will find diesel. I am hopeful that the tariff will be sufficient enough for them to find diesel. New or old management, I said in October we will have to put conditions on them.
Those conditions will have to say that if we take the debt, these are things we expect,” he said.
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