The many faces of André de Ruyter
Former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter left the power utility at short notice toward the end of February 2023, following an explosive interview with E-tv’s Annika Larsen.
He also said he would be leaving the country for safety reasons.
During his tenure at the power utility, De Ruyter managed to reduce debt and implement corruption-fighting processes at Eskom.
However, he never fulfilled his mandate or kept his promise that load-shedding would be significantly reduced by September 2021.
In fact, quite the opposite has happened. Load-shedding only intensified in late 2021, 2022, and early 2023.
A summary of Eskom’s achievements and failures under De Ruyter’s leadership follows below.
Debt improvement at taxpayers’ cost
De Ruyter was appointed Eskom CEO in December 2019 and managed to reduce the power utility’s debt from R496 billion to R401 billion by June 2021.
Before his appointment, Eskom’s debt had escalated rapidly from R30 billion in 2005.
It should be noted that De Ruyter’s achievement wasn’t without support from the South African government in the form of bailouts.
In February 2022, finance minister Enoch Godongwana announced a “tough-love” approach to funding South Africa’s state-owned companies.
However, he said Eskom would continue receiving government bailouts.
He highlighted that, as of February 2022, the power utility had been provided R136 billion to help it pay off its debt, with a further R88 billion earmarked for Eskom until the 2025/26 financial year.
During his 2023 budget speech, Godongwana announced that Eskom would receive a further R254 billion in debt assistance to help it end load-shedding.
The power utility’s debt obligations have worsened with the recent levels of load-shedding, as Eskom has been burning a lot more diesel to offset higher stages.
Having spent more than double its allocated diesel budget, Eskom approached National Treasury for funds to buy more fuel.
However, its financial statements reveal that Eskom didn’t receive a further bailout to buy diesel, but instead increased its debt.
Enoch Godongwana, South African Minister of Finance
Fighting corruption
One of De Ruyter’s most notable accomplishments at Eskom is his team’s strides towards tackling corruption at the power utility. Unfortunately, sabotage and theft are still rampant.
During his interview with Larsen, the former CEO said he believes South African politicians — particularly those in the ANC — are complicit in corruption and power station sabotage at the utility.
He said this belief stemmed from the opposition to the Just Energy Transition (JET), which aims to reduce Eskom’s reliance on coal power in favour of renewable energy sources.
Despite the shift away from coal being slated as a decades-long project, De Ruyter said various stakeholders were vigorously opposed to the transition.
When he asked a colleague about the resistance, De Ruyter said they told him he was naive because he was not showing the [ANC] comrades “a way to eat”.
He also alleged that South African politicians are connected to coal cartels and power station sabotage — two significant factors contributing to Eskom’s inability to run its power stations efficiently.
He added that people who attempted to act against these criminals were killed “pretty much every week”.
De Ruyter said power station saboteurs effectively committed treason weekly, but the State Security Agency was just “missing in action”.
However, despite the challenges, the former CEO’s actions against corruption led to the arrest of multiple coal thieves and power station saboteurs in recent months.
Unkept promises
Shortly after taking the top job at Eskom, De Ruyter told the media that Eskom would “significantly reduce” load-shedding from September 2021.
“That lack of maintenance where we have not done mid-life refurbishments has added to the generation system where we are today — which is not reliable and not as predictable as we would like it to be,” he said.
To combat this, the power utility implemented a reliability maintenance programme in September 2020, which aimed to improve the reliability of several high-generation units by September of the following year.
“Once we complete this programme of reliability maintenance, we will be able to significantly reduce, but not entirely limit the risk of load shedding going forward,” De Ruyter said.
He added that the first round of reliability maintenance was expected to be completed in April 2021, which he said would result in “a step change in the risk of load shedding.”
The final round was slated to be completed in September 2021, which De Ruyter said would lead to a “substantial reduction in the risk of load shedding”.
This was seconded by then-Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha, who said South Africa would be at a high risk of load-shedding until September 2021.
However, despite these promises, load-shedding only intensified from September 2021 onwards.
As the above chart shows, South Africa was subjected to 1,153 hours — or 48 days — of load-shedding in 2021.
This almost tripled to 3,380 hours (141 days) in 2022, and early 2023 has already seen Eskom implement protracted stage 6 power cuts.
Just energy transition
In September 2020, De Ruyter said Eskom would be transitioning to new energy sources like solar and wind power. He said making its power fleet environmentally compliant would cost R60 billion over the next decade.
He added that private investors had expressed interest in supporting South Africa’s move to renewable energy.
These included organisations like the World Bank, European Investment Bank, and others keen to support and accelerate the rollout of decarbonised, low-carbon, and no-carbon electricity generation.
In July 2021, the former CEO said Eskom would require R146 billion to move away from coal.
He proposed a multi-lender loan facility from development finance institutions that would be paid out in segments over several years.
At COP26 in November 2021, wealthy nations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, pledged $8.5 billion (R131 billion) in funding for South Africa’s switch to cleaner energy.
De Ruyter said this funding is now in jeopardy, as the countries putting up the money are concerned it would simply be stolen.
Ever-changing “sophisticated spying device” story
In October 2022, De Ruyter said he found a “sophisticated” tracking device under the seat of his car.
A forensic investigator reportedly said the device is commonly used by overseas law enforcement and intelligence agencies and was beyond South African capabilities.
However, claims that the bug was a “sophisticated NSA-level device” raised eyebrows in South Africa’s tech and security community. Experts quickly rubbished the idea that only advanced state-sponsored spies could manufacture the device.
Many believed the circuit board was merely for a remote button, like a gate or garage remote, or a panic button for a car tracking system.
MyBroadband approached Volvo — the manufacturer of De Ruyter’s car — for comment on the device found in his vehicle.
The company said the circuit board looked like one of Tracker’s older devices commonly fitted to Volvos.
“Based off of the photos that you have sent us, our third-party supplier Tracker have informed us that this could be one of their older devices that were fitted to Volvos a few years ago,” a Volvo spokesperson told MyBroadband.
However, De Ruyter doubled down on his claims that the device he found was a highly sophisticated bug.
During a public question and answer session hosted by Kieno Kammies on Waitroom, De Ruyter held up a letter with a Volvo letterhead that he said confirmed the device was not a Volvo part.
“This is a sophisticated bug planted by persons unknown,” he added.
MyBroadband contacted Volvo to comment about the document featuring CMH Volvo Cars Bryanston’s letterhead that De Ruyter showed to camera, but the company never provided feedback.
During his interview with Larsen, De Ruyter had adjusted his claims again.
The device was no longer an NSA-level spying device beyond South African capabilities but one South African intelligence operatives used.
“When I spoke to someone that I know in the Inspectorate General of Intelligence, the individual told me, ‘Of course I recognise this! This is one of ours. We have lots of these.'”
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