MAN WITH A HEAD FOR POWER
He left Eskom under a cloud just months ago – now Brian Molefe’s return to his old job is causing an uproar
POKING a finger in a live electrical socket is about all that would have guaranteed South Africans a bigger shock than the news of Brian Molefe’s return to the CEO’s office at Eskom. The man who wept openly as he stepped down as Eskom chief executive in November after being fingered in Thuli Madonsela’s State Of Capture report returned to Megawatt Park to widespread outrage and dismay.
And this after minister of public enterprises Lynne Brown objected to him getting a whopping R30-million pension payout for his 18 months as CEO. Rather go back and serve out the remainder of your five-year contract, she said – and so he did.
But analysts say there could be more to Molefe’s return than bureaucratic convenience.
So why is he back?
Molefe (50) has returned apparently to grease the wheels for deals like the one the Gupta family’s coal company has with Eskom, says William Gumede, associate professor at the School of Governance at Wits University.
The State of Capture report revealed a close relationship between Molefe, the Guptas and their company Tegeta Exploration and Resources, an Eskom coal supplier. The report raised questions about whether the Eskom leadership stretched procurement rules to award a multimillion-rand coal contract to Tegeta.
The Eskom-Tegeta deal is under the spotlight in Parliament for contravening supply-chain management procedures.
Gumede says he suspects Molefe was also brought back to resurrect the R1-trillion nuclear energy deal SA had with Russia, which the high court in Cape Town has declared invalid, ordering the government to review it. “Eskom is still in charge if they have a relook at it. They probably reappointed him to help find a different way, not to stop it, but to renegotiate it a different way.”
Should he be back?
No, energy expert Chris Yelland says. Molefe should have done what he said he’d do – “step down in the interest of good governance, in order to clear his name, in the best interests of Eskom and South Africa”.
Yelland says he was surprised when he heard Molefe was coming back. “Then you start to realise that it was all about R30 million and they couldn’t reach a compromise.
“He wanted the money and the minister wasn’t prepared to sign off on it because it was irregular. He insisted on the money and they had no choice but to take him back.”
But a R30-million payout for a parastatal that’s underperforming is a problem, Gumede adds.
Another issue is that boards of stateowned companies are often appointed because of their political connections, and don’t perform their oversight role properly.
“For the board to decide Molefe should come back is astonishing. It’s beyond rationality and corporate governance,” he says.
Could Molefe be the best person for the job, though?
Not if things are as the public protector’s report suggest, Yelland says. “If they are then he’s the wrong leader for Eskom.”
Political analyst Ralph Mathekga believes reappointing Molefe was a risky move.
“There might be another hand at play,” he says. He adds the public protector’s report remains legally binding because it hasn’t been challenged in court.
“He was a good guy. But that’s a presumption. There are certain things coming to light. His recent decision [to return] will force us to dig into his past decisions.” Mathekga says decisionmakers keep blundering because there are no consequences. “However, in the long run there will be consequences – especially within the ANC.”
Still, did he help put us back in the light?
Molefe was made interim CEO of Eskom in April 2015 and permanently appointed in September 2015. By November of that year he said load-shedding had been consigned to the history books.
But he did concede reports stating the need for load-shedding had declined due to the economic slump were “somewhat true”. There’d been an unexpected drop in demand for electricity from the industrial, mining, agricultural and transport sectors – if not, load-shedding would probably still be part of our lives.
Yelland adds that running Eskom isn’t “one man’s business, but a team effort”.
And it’s a big team – there are around 55 000 employees, a board of directors and executives, and many layers of middle and senior management.
He doesn’t want to detract from the achievements of reducing load-shedding and the maintenance backlog, Yelland continues.
“These are indeed important achievements, but to paint it all as one man’s business would be a disservice to the whole organisation.”
One of Molefe’s major accomplishments was the leadership he provided to galvanise his staff, he says.
What went on at Eskom in Molefe’s absence?
After Molefe’s departure in November, Matshela Koko was appointed acting CEO. He was previously Eskom’s group executive for generation.
Koko’s time as CEO hasn’t been dull – he’s been dogged by the “billion rand babe” investigation into lucrative Eskom contracts worth R1 billion landed by a company of which his 26-year-old stepdaughter, Koketso Choma, was a director. She’s since resigned.
The deals are being probed by the Eskom board and the public enterprises ministry.
Koko is expected to return to his old job now Molefe is back.
How are things at Eskom now?
“[Molefe] has often said he’s turned around the organisation’s finances. I don’t believe that’s the case yet,” Yelland says, citing the parastatal’s high debt levels. He adds that several of Eskom’s power stations are “environmentally noncompliant”.
“They’ve applied for a waiver of the environmental regulations in order to give them time to put their house in order,” Yelland says.