Eskom circus clowning with future of SA
• Taxpayers the real losers if utility is totally destroyed
In a scene resembling the dying days of the SABC board led by Prof Mbulaheni Maguvhe in late 2016, Eskom last week suspended its legal head and replaced acting CEO Johnny Dladla with a relative junior, while the board tied itself in knots with contradictory public statements.
At stake is not only the recovery of the R1.6bn that Eskom illegally paid to McKinsey and Trillian, but also the financial stability of the country as the R400bn the electricity utility owes lenders can be recalled, with disastrous consequences for the economy.
The suspension of legal head Suzanne Daniels, who has taken the matter to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), brings to six the number of the utility’s executives who have been iced in the past six months.
Daniels was suspended two days after demanding that McKinsey and Trillian pay back money illegally earned and threatened the companies with possible criminal prosecution.
If Eskom continues on its current path, key people at the utility, five of whom have been suspended for various matters, may be negatively affected. Daniels’s removal mimics the last days of the SABC’s board — in that it did everything it could, including ignoring legal obligations, to protect Hlaudi Motsoeneng from dismissal and possible criminal charges.
Since February, the Eskom board has presided over a range of illegal and irrational actions. It started with the concealment of and lying about the Dentons report; lying about Oliver Wyman endorsing the Trillian and McKinsey payments; and the aborted R30m payout to Brian Molefe, his reinstatement and then his dismissal again.
Many of these actions were done with the tacit approval of Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown.
The board, under the hapless chairmanship of Zethembe Khoza, is also seeming to do all it can to ensure Trillian and McKinsey get away with not refunding their ill-gotten gains.
The similarities between Eskom under Khoza and the public broadcaster under Maguvhe are uncanny.
If Motsoeneng was the kingpin at the SABC, then Matshela Koko is his equivalent at the power utility. And Brown is Eskom’s version of former communications minister Faith Muthambi.
When Motsoeneng could no longer run the SABC, he appointed his protégé James Aguma. Aguma hounded staff who dissented out of the SABC.
Insiders are now saying that when Koko could no longer run Eskom and ensure control of the utility through Dladla, Sean Maritz suddenly got the nod.
Maritz wasted no time suspending the independentminded Daniels within the first hour of his appointment.
Maritz was promoted by Koko to chief information officer and IT head in 2015, after Eskom parted ways with Sal Laher, who stood in Koko’s way when a key IT contract had to be signed with T-Systems.
But the board has been dragging its feet and is seeming to work hard to ensure that the suspended officials, including Koko and chief financial officer Anoj Singh, never get to carry the can for their role in illegally dishing out taxpayer money to McKinsey and Trillian.
The most significant aspect of this sorry saga is that SA’s most strategically important company, the sole electricity provider, is being run by people of questionable quality who do not have the requisite powers to make important decisions as they occupy interim positions. An acting executive cannot make senior staff appointments.
Of the 10 executive committee members, five are suspended and interim officebearers are occupying their positions. The suspended officials all face serious charges of misconduct including corruption. Of the top tier of Eskom’s leadership, only three have been in their positions for longer than three years.
This means whoever negotiated the more than R400bn in loans for the utility are not there anymore to bring their accumulated experience and relationships to bear. Of the current leadership, only three officials were in the top tier of the executive five years ago.
They are being led by a new interim board and minister who are all devoid of any integrity.
The conflicting reasons given for Dladla’s replacement on Friday, with Brown’s immediate blessing, show Eskom is being run by a board of amateurs who seem beholden to a hidden hand outside the utility.
In this comedy of errors, the real loser is the taxpayer, who will bear the cost when the entity is run into the ground.