How to (almost) do the right thing

Molefe admitted he hurt Eskom, so why go back?

DEEPWATER Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, semisubmersible offshore drilling rig leased to BP between 2001 and 2013.

On April 20 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana, an uncontrollable blowout caused an explosion on the rig that killed 11 crew members and ignited a fireball visible 64km away. The fire was inextinguishable and, two days later, the Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing at the seabed and causing the largest oil spill in US waters yet.

The names of the dead crew members are forgotten, but not that of Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP.

I was reminded of Hayward as I read Eskom’s answering affidavit filed in the high court this week. When the oil leak started, Hayward initially downplayed it, stating a month later that the environmental impact was likely to be “very, very modest” and that the spill was “relatively tiny” in comparison with the size of the ocean.

Two weeks later, Hayward changed his assessment, calling the spill an “environmental catastrophe” in an interview with CNN.

Like Brian Molefe, Hayward later conceded he had “made a few little mistakes early on”, but a few days later he told a reporter: “There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. I’d like my life back.”

After a number of PR nightmares including racing his yacht in an exclusive JPMorgan-sponsored contest a day after he had appeared before a congressional hearing on the oil spill, the rumours started that Hayward would be fired. Instead, BP issued a statement saying he “had the full confidence” of the board.

Three months after the oil spill, the company eventually announced that Hayward was leaving.

It is obvious that Hayward’s behaviour after the oil spill was horrendous, but he ultimately did the right thing, albeit not entirely of his own accord. He stepped down.

Now this is what I thought Molefe was doing on that fateful morning when he shed tears and announced he was stepping down as Eskom CEO. He was doing the right thing.

CEOs of the world’s top companies are seen as an extension of the companies they lead. Any major damage to the reputation of such a CEO generally leads to them resigning, in an effort to recover their good name.

The CEO of Africa’s largest electricity utility is no different, and his “resignation/ step down/ early retirement/ leave of employ/ annual leave/ whatever you wanna call it” letter said exactly that.

In the letter, Molefe didn’t pull any punches in expressing his own doubts on the Public Protector’s report. He criticised the “observations” that he believed were based on “inaccurate partfacts”. He came down hard on the Public Protector not giving him an opportunity to put his side of the story to her.

Notwithstanding his expressed disagreement with the report, Molefe appropriately concluded that “in the meantime — harm is done to the institution it has been my honour to lead in the most difficult times — to its reputation and to my own. I am confident that when the time comes I will be able to show that I have done nothing wrong and that my name will be cleared. I have in the interest of good corporate governance decided to leave my employ at Eskom from 1 January 2017. I do so voluntarily.”

It now turns out Molefe wasn’t doing the right thing. Notwithstanding the clear message in his letter, he was in fact not stepping down. He was not “leaving his employ voluntarily”. The answering affidavit reveals that he was in fact actually taking early retirement on the basis that he would be due a R30-million pension payout.

At what point was his “leaving of employ” about a retirement benefit? If indeed it was, why didn’t he say so? If he was taking early retirement, why didn’t he say so?

Molefe’s reason for stepping down was very clear in his own letter — it was in the interest of good corporate governance. Now he is back to being the CEO of Eskom. What has happened then to the “good corporate governance” rationale? How has Eskom regularised what Molefe had envisaged would be bad corporate governance if he was to stay on as CEO?

Perhaps more importantly, what has happened to Molefe’s own conscience?

Martin Luther King, jnr is quoted as having said “there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right”. It is not too late, sir. Khumalo is chief operating officer of MSG Afrika and presents “Power Business” on Power 98.7 at 6pm, Monday to Thursday

What happened to the good governance rationale?