State entities must be in right hands

Despite the resignation of Eskom chairperson Ben Ngubane and the removal of Brian Molefe as the power utility’s CEO, we are left with the chilling thought that very little is likely to change. Both men departed their positions under a cloud: Molefe without the proposed silver lining of a R30 million payout and Ngubane facing a probe for pushing the agendas of the Gupta family and proposing Molefe’s “golden handshake”.

Ngubane was a staunch defender of Molefe, who was brought back to Eskom this year after the board was ordered by Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown to rescind his lucrative “early pension” payout. It was later reversed and the matter is now before two courts and a parliamentary inquiry.

It is of concern that the Eskom board’s spin doctor, Khulani Qoma, would maintain that Ngubane’s leadership had “brought a lot of stability to the organisation”, when it does not stand the acid test of its veracity.

Ngubane has been named twice so far in the welter of Gupta leaks showering down on the political landscape: in a failed bid to secure a lucrative oil concession in the Central African Republic and in revelations about the capture of Eskom.

The DA maintain that Ngubane’s shock midnight resignation – accepted by Brown – would not exonerate him from liability for the breakdown of governance at the power utility.

Nor should it. The breakdown of governance under politically appointed functionaries has been at the heart of the failure of state-controlled entities such as Eskom, SAA, the SABC and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa.

Until this lack of governance is seriously addressed and managers with the necessary credibility and competence installed to run things, the continuous roundabout of begging hands asking for public funding to fill the shortfall will continue.