BEHIND THE BULLYING OF MAVUSO
Parliament’s Scopa chair and public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan should be ashamed of their attack on a woman who tells it like it is about the mess at Eskom
It is an indication of just how much we have regressed as a society that Eskom board member and CEO of Business Leadership SA Busisiwe Mavuso has not received an effusive apology from parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), its chair, Mkhuleko Hlengwa, and minister of public enterprises Pravin Gordhan.
Instead, Mavuso has been painted as disrespectful, engaging in “theatrics” and playing “politics of the gutter”. What an outrage and injustice! We should hang our heads in shame.
Last Friday, Mavuso was asked to leave a Scopa meeting that had been discussing Eskom. She had said the ANC was responsible for the “mess” at Eskom. There is no lie there. Power cuts have been the bane of South Africans’ lives for 15 years.
Instead of fixing the problem, the ANC’s investment wing, Chancellor House, bought a huge stake in Hitachi, a company that was bidding to build boilers for the two new power stations that were supposed to solve our energy problems. Of course, Hitachi won the contracts. Stop sniggering. That’s how things work round here.
Fifteen years later, Kusile and Medupi have performed spectacularly badly. Costs ballooned from a projected R163bn to R450bn.
Medupi was “completed” last August — six years late. Kusile’s completion date has been pushed back to 2024, nine years late.
The Hitachi-Chancellor House deal was corrupt. In 2015 Hitachi agreed to pay a $19m penalty in a settlement with the US Securities & Exchange Commission after it said the deal violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The company had paid Chancellor House, which ANC officials have openly admitted was a front company for the party, two lots of money: $5m in one payment and a further $1m in “success fees”. Success for what, you may well ask. We all know it’ sa “thank you, brother” payment for giving them the contract.
This is the “mess” Mavuso was referring to when she told Hlengwa that the current Eskom and its CEO, André de Ruyter, should not be blamed for Kusile and Medupi. Her spirited defence was branded as “theatrics” by Hlengwa. He told her: “Either behave yourself or excuse yourself from this meeting.”
Now, Mavuso does not need any defending on the issue of corrupt practices at Eskom. She is backed by the facts above and more. My anger and disappointment emanate from the shabby, sexist and condescending way she was treated.
First, the accusation that a woman is engaging in theatrics is as old as the hills. This is what sexist men have always done: women who speak up are emotional, hysterical, theatrical, loud — they should keep quiet.
It reminds me of the worst of former US president Donald Trump. When Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly pressed Trump about misogynistic comments he had made in the past, calling some women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals”, he retaliated by saying she must have asked the question because she had “blood coming out of her wherever”.
This is how sexism works, and this is what women face in many workplaces. Their voices are suppressed, and they are branded as hysterical or theatrical. Were Mavuso a man, she would have been called assertive, strong-willed — a leader. Well, some of us are here to say “amandla” to her theatrics and her hysteria and whatever else they may call it. She is being labelled because she is a woman who speaks truth to power.
The most insidious aspect of the whole thing, however, is one that drives the narrative that the current Eskom board and De Ruyter are incompetent and should be sacked immediately. This narrative has been pushed heavily by the very ANC leaders, part of the radical economic transformation faction, who are responsible for the Hitachi-Medupi-Kusile mess. In pushing for the removal of this board, and the sacking of De Ruyter in particular, they hope to install their own favoured minions at Eskom.
Now, if De Ruyter and this board are failing at the key things they have been put in place to fix, they should be fired. However, they should not be fired because of ANC factional politics.
That is what is happening now. In fact, we should ask if that is why Gordhan has suddenly found his voice and issued a statement pillorying Mavuso, when she said what he has been saying for years. Of everyone in this sorry mess, he should be most ashamed of himself.