Hands off André de Ruyter
Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has dismissed calls for him to step down, and he has the backing of many South African business leaders and energy experts.
Following the recent load-shedding, the Black Business Council (BBC), the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) have called on De Ruyter to resign.
These organisations highlighted that the Eskom leadership has failed to meet its self-imposed target of limiting load-shedding from September 2021.
Responding to calls that he should step down, De Ruyter said he does not intend to resign of his own accord.
“Given the current circumstances, it is 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.
De Ruyter has the backing of many business leaders and energy experts who said it would be disastrous if he left Eskom now.
Wayne Duvenage, Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse CEO
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) CEO Wayne Duvenage said it is ridiculous to call for the removal of De Ruyter and the Eskom board.
“Eskom management has inherited a systemic breakdown and failure of an institution. There has been very little maintenance, and there has been very little procurement of energy since 2019,” he said. “To lay blame and put all of these problems at the feet of De Ruyter is misguided.”
He added that De Ruyter and his team are trying to fix the problems they inherited and are addressing problems like corrupt leaders and companies ripping Eskom off.
Business Unity South Africa (Busa) has also rejected calls for De Ruyter to resign, saying they stand with the Eskom leadership in these difficult times.
“It does not help to exacerbate the ongoing operational crisis by creating a leadership and governance crisis at Eskom,” Busa said.
“This leadership has taken the tough decisions, shown remarkable openness and transparency and, critically, developed a progressive future-looking plan that will see the diversification and decarbonisation of the electricity supply system in South Africa.”
Energy expert Chris Yelland also defended De Ruyter, saying the transparency and effort he put in to keep South Africans abreast of the latest developments are in a different league to his predecessors.
Even energy analyst Mike Rossouw, who is fiercely critical of Eskom, backed De Ruyter and his leadership team.
“De Ruyter and his COO, Jan Oberholzer, are good people. To let them go now makes no sense whatsoever,” Rossouw said.
Loading ...