Eskom needs a ‘fixer’ CEO

You can also listen to this podcast in Iono.fm here.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Something else we’re grappling with is Eskom, and we’re taking a look at the possibility of a new Eskom CEO. We know that the Minister of Public Enterprises (Pravin Gordhan) announced that we should have a new CEO quite soon. I’m joined by Kganki Matabane, who is the CEO of the Black Business Council, to take a look at what this all means. Good day, Mr Matabane, thank you so much for your time. Is someone even applying for this job?

KGANKI MATABANE: Good day and good day to listeners. There are always people who are willing to put themselves up there and I think it depends on different types of characteristics of individuals, because some people want to work where there’s chaos so that they can fix it, some people are maintainers, so they want to go and work in a place where they just maintain the system that is there, and some people want to go to a place where they can grow. There are always going to be people who are willing and available. What is important for us is that those people must be skilled, because I can be available but if you’re not skilled, then it is not helping the situation that we are having.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Absolutely and given what we know about the problems that have plagued Eskom, and all of that sort of thing, and you refer to the skills component of it, what would the Black Business Council be expecting to see from someone or from the CEOs who are shortlisted as potential candidates or from the actual CEO who is announced? What are we looking to see either by way of skillset or by way of decision-making capabilities?

KGANKI MATABANE: I think where Eskom is, Eskom is broken, and we all know the problems of Eskom.

I’m sure we’re the only country in the world where any person on the street knows the names of the power stations.

I don’t think there’s any other country where you’ll find people who know the power stations, they even know the units, they know which one is broken. So we don’t want a CEO who will come and then tell us the same story again to say, ‘no, no, the problem with Eskom is one, two, three’.

We all know the problems. We need a CEO who will come and implement the plan that is the way. We think that the plan that has been developed by the new board is very, very solid because the plan is saying, fix the current Eskom, improve what is called the energy availability factor, sort out load shedding and then you can do the Just Energy Transition (JET) after that because we cannot transition in the dark. We need a fixer, we need someone who will come and fix. Even if that person is there for three years and then once they have fixed it, then we can get someone who is a maintainer to take over.

JIMMY MOYAHA: That being said, will the new CEO have the powers to do that? Because just yesterday we were having conversations around what the electricity minister’s powers are, and it seems as though they’re still not effective when compared to what the DMRE (Department of Mineral Resources and Energy) minister’s powers are. Will the CEO then have the powers to affect the changes that we so desperately need?

KGANKI MATABANE: Yes, the CEO … the way the associates work, you’ve got shareholders in compacts, you’ve got all those documents that define the relationships between various stakeholders. So the CEOs always have powers, they’ve got powers to appoint people, they’ve got powers to do whatever they want to do.

I think now, because government seems to have now noticed that there’s an urgency to solve Eskom, they will be able to do that.

Fortunately, you’ve got the Minister of Electricity (Kgosientso Ramokgopa), even though he’s not an electrical engineer, but he’s a civil engineer, so he understands what needs to be done.

Hence, we don’t want someone who will come and hash a plan because the plan is there. We know what needs to be done and I’m confident that now everyone is aware and recognises that we’re in danger because what the economy has lost so far is massive. So we need someone who will come and be given a space. I think that person will be given a space, I think the board will be able to protect that person. We do have a solid board at Eskom. The Minister of Electricity is very solid. I think the person will be able to be given a space to do what they’re supposed to do.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Do we have any idea on any names or any candidates that have been rumoured to be interested in the position?

KGANKI MATABANE: For us, we’re not necessarily rooting for any person, we are just saying we need a set of skills that will fix Eskom, that will get us out of this mess.

Fortunately, Cabinet has also realised the importance of extending the lifespan of the power stations because you can imagine if you’re a CEO and then you are told that this power station is going to be mothballed in five years, there’s no way you can put any money there.

You cannot put any Capex (capital expenditure) into that power station because then the return on investment is not there. So we’re not pushing for any candidate. We need someone who will come there, solve the issues of Eskom, get us out of this load shedding and let the country go on with this life and so that we can forget about the names of power stations.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Well, there’s definitely no shortage of qualified candidates in the country. The hope is that, of course, that the incoming CEO will have the powers and the support necessary to make the difficult decisions to get this load shedding chapter of our lives behind us, because more than 15 years of having it, we’re all tired of it. Thank you so much, Mr Matabane. That’s Kganki Matabane, who is the CEO of the Black Business Council, giving us a sense of what the incoming Eskom CEO would need to have to take over the role.