Eskom refuses to acknowledge September 2021 promise

[thestaggy]

I don't have too much of an opinion on de Ruyter, but he is 100% working within the constraints of the ANC and its cronies (unions). He does whatever is politically expedient.

In the private sector, a CEO that comes in to turn around a failed/failing business would begin an initially turbulent process of change management. That has not happened because it will press all the wrong buttons, so Eskom is operating the same way Eskom always has while attempting to address its problems.

Nobody can fix Eskom while the ANC and the unions are involved. They are the problem.

 

[deesef]

Why is Escum still selling electricity to other countries while the system is so constrained? Surely our economy is more important to us, than the useless neighbouring countries who don't want to build their own infrastructure...

 

[Lupus]

Why is Escum still selling electricity to other countries while the system is so constrained? Surely our economy is more important to us, than the useless neighbouring countries who don't want to build their own infrastructure...

Yeah I know that 100MW they sell when there is capacity is a lot, I mean we import 1600MW but export a lot less.
Also those are fixed contracts and actually pay.

 

[WollieVerstege]

It would be much more useful and meaningful to see how much maintenance was performed under each CEO and what problems were maintenance connected and what not.
For goodness sake, article writers, take some pride in your work!

I also want them to add the actual demand for electricity. Under Dames it looks wonderful with no loadshedding, but that was due to low demand resulting from the economic downturn during the global financial crises.
I would even go so far as to say, that if it was not for the global financial crises, SA would have been in a much worse position, much sooner.

 

[dualmeister]

Can't make such promises when your staff are sabotaging equipment.
/runs

 

[R13...]

Didnt Mandela also make promises and we still waiting till this day.

What about yeah? What about?

 

[Swa]

Exactly what I said. The "reliability maintenance" didn't do squat to improve reliability so I don't see what the point was.

 

[Johand]

According to some of these diagrams in the article Brian Molefe and Koko was the best thing since sliced bread

Maybe somebody should start showing this picture (easily compiled from Eskom Annual Financial Statements):

Year-End	Long Term Debt	Increase/(Decrease) Long Term Debt
2021​	356 852​	(51 299)​
2020​	408 151​	20 943​
2019​	387 208​	39 096​
2018​	348 112​	11 342​
2017​	336 770​	29 800​
2016​	306 970​	29 512​
2015​	277 458​	42 896​
2014​	234 562​

This poor man is trying to run a company that has no financial leeway, he isn't allowed to fire workers until there are explosions and all the competent people left before he joined.

Blaming De Ruyter is like blaming a contractor who is rebuilding a burnt down house that he made a mess. Mr De Ruyter is quite clear on how SA can get out of the mess - his bosses in government is not following through fast enough...

 

[Swa]

But the water outage is because of maintenance for a change? Also it's not completely out.

May be the case but it's also not the first time in recent years so how did that previous maintenance help? I've also seen regular calls to reduce water demand same as electricity so it's not like it's preventative maintenance. ANC was warned that our water infrastructure poses a problem but also did nothing. Now the chickens have come home to roost like Eskom from 2007 it will only get worse.

 

[Swa]

I don't have too much of an opinion on de Ruyter, but he is 100% working within the constraints of the ANC and its cronies (unions). He does whatever is politically expedient.

In the private sector, a CEO that comes in to turn around a failed/failing business would begin an initially turbulent process of change management. That has not happened because it will press all the wrong buttons, so Eskom is operating the same way Eskom always has while attempting to address its problems.

Nobody can fix Eskom while the ANC and the unions are involved. They are the problem.

He has been given more leeway than any other CEO before him in everything. Sure the stuff that needs to happen isn't happening but everything he does which the others didn't doesn't seem to make a difference.

 

[Botha22]

Clearly things didn't go according to plan. I am more interested in the new plan. When is the electricity supply going to improve, if ever? What else needs to be done to stop these weekly bouts of load shedding?

If De Ruyter is fired, are we going to be cutting his successor as much slack?

 

[RonSwanson]

Can't make such promises when your staff are sabotaging equipment.
/runs

Many a true word was said in jest.

 

[TheChamp]

Clearly things didn't go according to plan. I am more interested in the new plan. When is the electricity supply going to improve, if ever? What else needs to be done to stop these weekly bouts of load shedding?

If De Ruyter is fired, are we going to be cutting his successor as much slack?

I don't know about everyone but I will wait to see if he's BEE or non BEE first, then I will formulate my reasoning on the size of the slack around that.

 

[Johand]

I would just like to add that Medupi and Kusile was terribly late and that power from the successive projects had to start feeding into the grid already. Andre de Ruyter repeatedly said that we need more generation capacity - both for growth and replacing old stations. But because all the money, and maybe more importantly *time* was stolen or misspent we are still talking about finalizing and fixing Medupi instead of breaking the champagne bottle on new power stations.

But this won't get fixed by the government. Luckily I am sure there are people in Stellenbosch rubbing their hands together for a big payday in private electricity generation...

 

[SubtleBeast]

All these negative reports and all targeted at de Ruyter. Makes one wonder.
Sure he hasn't delivered on a self-imposed deadline, but who could have predicted what would happen in the following months.
Give the guy a break and time and let him get on with rooting out corruption in ESKOM.

 

[The_MAC]

Will this not be the same question people will pose once the coalition Mayors move into some of the municipalities, demanding a complete transformation in 18 months, or else you are out?

Again, it's a bit of a hospital pass..

 

[Ianf1]

Why doesn't he acknowledge that he missed his self imposed deadline instead of the mushroom tactic of keeping us in the dark literally. And then inform us of his current plans

 

[Oldfut]

I would just like to add that Medupi and Kusile was terribly late and that power from the successive projects had to start feeding into the grid already. Andre de Ruyter repeatedly said that we need more generation capacity - both for growth and replacing old stations. But because all the money, and maybe more importantly *time* was stolen or misspent we are still talking about finalizing and fixing Medupi instead of breaking the champagne bottle on new power stations.

But this won't get fixed by the government. Luckily I am sure there are people in Stellenbosch rubbing their hands together for a big payday in private electricity generation...

Hmmm, I would not go as far away as Skelmbosch. Much closer to Cyril I suspect one P Motsepe is looking forward to (more of) the good times a rolling; IPP style.

 

[rpm]

It would be much more useful and meaningful to see how much maintenance was performed under each CEO and what problems were maintenance connected and what not.
For goodness sake, article writers, take some pride in your work!

That article will be published soon. The research has been done, and it shows that maintenance under Koko was the highest it has ever been. Following this maintenance, breakdowns declined and the EAF increased. This is what helped to eliminate load-shedding.

It may not be what people want to hear, but the data shows that Koko's card system worked to ensure maintenance is done properly to eliminate load-shedding.

The accusation that "power stations were run too hard" is currently not backed up by data. Or at least, we could not find any data which substantiates that claim. We asked Eskom for info on that, but they did not provide any.

 

[Gaz{M}]

The truth is: These old power stations are permanently and irretrievably destroyed. No amount of maintenance can fix them.

That is something nobody wants to admit.