SIKONATHI MANTSHANTSHA: The most useless CEO ever?
Free to read from Financial Mail's archives. Many an observer, including yours truly, took his low profile to project the image of 'Mr Clean'
First published in October 2017.
On June 22 Johnny Dladla was thrust into the national spotlight when he was appointed the seventh CEO of Eskom since March 2014. His temporary appointment carried much hope, as he was not well known outside the utility despite 22 years of service. Certainly Dladla had no media profile. This could be considered a good thing — it suggested he had managed to avoid publicity. Many an observer, including yours truly, took Dladla’s low profile to project the image of "Mr Clean". Optimistic as that prognosis was, it turned out to be an unnecessarily hurried and inaccurate conclusion, much to my regret. "Mr Useless" seems a more appropriate title, considering Dladla’s almost four-month tenure at Eskom’s helm. Dladla came in a month after generation division chief Matshela Koko was placed on special leave and then suspended for irregularly dishing out hundreds of millions to Impulse International, a company in which his step-daughter owned a significant minority shareholding. No shortage of ...
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