LETTER: Fire the armchair critics, not Eskom management

Long-suffering South Africans have been subjected to load-shedding for many years, which has increasingly disrupted thousands of businesses, leading to a loss of jobs, anxiety and unnecessary stress for millions of people.

Making matters worse are the armchair critics assembled on television programmes — representing unions, political parties, business councils and others — who continue to call for the resignation of Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter, invariably without offering an intelligible reason. Their utterances are mindless but, unfortunately, outrageous populist rhetoric such as “fire the CEO” is quickly assimilated by gullible citizens.

The print media also needs to undertake some introspection. A recent article accuses De Ruyter of failing the nation and questioned why he had not been fired. It accuses him of incompetence and blames him for load-shedding but fails to say how or why.

It would be insane to remove De Ruyter or tamper with Eskom’s top management team at this time. Over a 10-year period, 10 CEOs were appointed by the shareholder and, on reflection, they contributed little and failed to keep the country fully informed about the true state of the utility during their tenure.

More recently, much has been made about the “restructuring” of the board of directors but, once again, the media is failing to educate the public about effective corporate governance, which requires a basic understanding about the respective roles of the board, CEO, top management and, in the case of Eskom, the shareholder. 

The government is Eskom’s sole shareholder, whose representative is the minister of public enterprises. The board's role is to oversee the company’s business strategies and management to achieve long-term sustainability.

Over the years, the government has meddled with the operations and appointments at Eskom. It is also common knowledge that “cadre deployment” has contributed to a loss of engineering skills and the appointment of some staff to key positions without the necessary skills. Furthermore, in the toxic environment that developed various criminal syndicates sprang up. It follows the current debilitating operational environment was baked in over many years.

Government has now appointed a new board, whose members appear to have the key qualities of integrity, competence and experience, and it is hoped the shareholder will step back and allow the board to discharge its fiduciary responsibilities.

Neil Garden, Edenvale

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