The appointment of Jabu Mabuza as Eskom chairman has been met with elation. It could have been different. At the meeting on Friday evening with President Jacob Zuma, Cyril Ramaphosa and Malusi Gigaba to decide on the new board, it is said that Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown proposed the appointment of Playfair Morule to the chair. Morule doesn’t have a track record in finance, business or energy. What he does have, though, is links to the Free State and its premier, Ace Magashule — he has been a mayor and an MEC — and links to India, as he was SA’s high commissioner there. Morule has been in the news, but not for the best reasons: in 2008 he was fined R36,000 for killing a person in a hit-and-run accident. So, no, Brown has not given up. She seems to think the Gupta party is still on at Eskom and that the public should pay up and shut up. On Friday, she also suggested that the way out of Eskom’s crisis was a R20bn cash injection from the Treasury. Gigaba, who still has to f...

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