André de Ruyter’s day of reckoning has arrived

The Black Business Council (BBC) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) have called on Eskom CEO André de Ruyter to resign, but he said he would not resign of his own accord.
De Ruyter has been under fire after South Africa experienced the worst load-shedding it has ever seen under his leadership.
What aggravates the situation is that De Ruyter and Eskom promised the country that load-shedding would improve after September 2021.
“Maintenance is being performed to improve the performance and reliability of our plants. The results of these efforts will start bearing fruit during the third quarter of 2021 when much of the reliability maintenance has been completed,” Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said in December 2020.
This promise was repeated numerous times over the last 18 months, with Eskom asking South Africans to bear with load-shedding in the short term to ensure it is limited in the long term.
Citizens waited patiently, often in darkness, for Eskom to perform maintenance and improve the reliability of its power generation fleet.
The day of reckoning has now arrived, and Eskom has been shown to have failed miserably in its promise to limit load-shedding from September.
In fact, South Africa experienced the worst load-shedding it has ever seen over an October period, and November also kicked off with multiple days of load-shedding.
To date, Eskom and De Ruyter evaded questions as to what went wrong that prevented them from performing the necessary maintenance to limit load-shedding as promised.
Instead, De Ruyter blamed his predecessors and Eskom employees for their failure to keep the lights on.
The table below provides an overview of load-shedding under various Eskom CEOs over the last fourteen years. The data comes from Jarrad Wright, the principal engineer at the CSIR.
Load-shedding in South Africa | ||
Year | Energy Shed (GWh) | Eskom CEO |
2007 | 176 | Jacob Maroga |
2008 | 476 | Jacob Maroga |
2009 | 0 | Jacob Maroga |
2010 | 0 | Brian Dames |
2011 | 0 | Brian Dames |
2012 | 0 | Brian Dames |
2013 | 0 | Brian Dames |
2014 | 203 | Brian Dames/Collin Matjila |
2015 | 1,325 | Tshediso Matona/Brian Molefe |
2016 | 0 | Brian Molefe/Matshela Koko |
2017 | 0 | Johnny Dladla/Sean Maritz |
2018 | 192 | Phakamani Hadebe |
2019 | 1,352 | Phakamani Hadebe/Jabu Mabuza |
2020 | 1,798 | André de Ruyter |
2021 | 1,914 | André de Ruyter |
Calls for Andre de Ruyter to resign
Following the disastrous load-shedding in recent weeks, The BBC, NUM, and the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) have called on De Ruyter and the Eskom board to resign.
NUM said in a press statement that the leadership of De Ruyter had sold South Africans a dead cat.
“They promised that they would resolve the problem of load shedding in 18 months. They dismally failed to meet their set target. All we need is the leadership that will keep the lights burning,” it said.
BBC CEO Kganki Matabane admitted that they were overly optimistic that De Ruyter could bring stability to Eskom.
“We have since realised that two years later, the country has nothing to show but the most blackouts in the history of our beloved South Africa,” he said.
Saftu secretary-general, Zwelinzima Vavi, echoed Matabane’s views, saying De Ruyter and the Eskom board have failed beyond any reasonable doubt.
“They are useless. They have proven to every South African that there is no solution that will ever come from their direction, and South Africa is suffering. South Africa is in darkness,” he said.
Commenting on these calls, De Ruyter said he does “not intend to resign of my own accord”.
“Given the current circumstances, it is probably more important to have continuity of management rather than to fall back into the trap that Eskom has been in over the past ten years when we had eleven different executives,” he said.
“That lack of continuity has clearly contributed significantly to instability in the organisation. It is important to continue on the path we have taken.”
“I understand that there are frustrations that we are not achieving our objectives as quickly as we would have liked to, but these frustrations will not be resolved by changing jockeys.”