Third strong Eskom CEO candidate revealed
Central Energy Fund (CEF) chairperson and former Eskom executive of customer services — Ayanda Noah — is included on a shortlist of potential candidates to take over as the utility’s CEO.
That is according to City Press and Rapport‘s sources within Eskom.
Noah has over 29 years of experience in energy and is currently the managing director of her own engineering consultancy — AN Duke Solutions.
Her qualifications include an electrical engineering degree from the University of Cape Town, a Master’s in Business Administration from the International Management Centre, and advanced management programme qualification from Harvard Business School.
She has served as a director at Eskom Rotek Industries, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and the South African National Energy Association.
Noah was retrenched from Eskom in 2018, following an overhaul of the utility’s executive structure to do away with non-Exco officials at the senior general management level.
At the time, corruption-charged former Eskom CEO Matshela Koko tweeted a list of the executives who had been retrenched, which included Noah’s name.
He said some of those on the list had “backstabbed” him.
Noah was among those who testified against Koko’s disciplinary hearings in 2017, accusing him of “irregular shenanigans” by manipulating the awarding of a R1.1 billion cabling contract at Kusile Power Station.
Energy expert Chris Yelland described Noah’s testimony at Koko’s disciplinary hearings as “inconclusive and somewhat forgetful”.
One of the few @Eskom_SA executives who have not been dispensed; Ayanda Noah, is now taking the oath at the @koko_matshela disciplinary pic.twitter.com/VENky3ClO3
— SikonathiMantshantsh (@SikonathiM) November 25, 2017
Noah is one of at least five candidates Eskom has shortlisted for the position.
Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan recently said the new CEO could be appointed within the next month.
Other reported candidates include former Eskom manager Dan Marokane and Association of Municipal Electricity Utilities special advisor Vally Padayachee, who also previously served at Eskom and Joburg’s City Power.
Despite his previous misgivings about Noah, Chris Yelland told City Press and Rapport that he believed Noah was the most likely to get the job.
“She’s the most credible candidate I’ve heard of so far — black, a woman and an engineer with experience in Eskom at the management level, who currently reports to [mineral resources and energy minister] Gwede Mantashe.”
Should Yelland’s expectation be realised, Noah will become the first woman ever to be appointed Eskom CEO.
Ayanda Noah
Eskom has had no permanent CEO since the early resignation of André de Ruyter in February 2023.
His abrupt exit at the utility, which came around a month and a half earlier than planned, was accelerated by a bombshell interview on E-tv’s My Guest Tonight with Annika Larsen.
Among his many claims about sabotage and problems experienced at the utility, De Ruyter alleged that senior politicians in the ANC were complicit in the Mpumalanga coal cartels.
These syndicates operate an advanced criminal network that steals high-quality coal destined for Eskom’s power stations, replacing it with an inferior product that sometimes includes rocks and other rubble that has damaged the utility’s generating unit.
De Ruyter again raised his allegations in a book titled Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom, which was released without prior announcement on 14 May 2023.
There has been huge public interest in the book.
According to publisher Penguin Random House SA (PRHSA), book sales auditing services Nielsen BookScan has confirmed 16,444 copies of Truth to Power were sold in its first week on store shelves.
That beats a record for first-week book sales in South Africa previously held by Jacques Pauw’s The President’s Keepers.
Former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter published a book entitled
Eskom CFO Calib Cassim has been acting CEO since De Ruyter’s resignation.
Given the utility’s severe operational and financial challenges, energy and business experts believe that the task of Eskom CEO is currently one of the toughest executive jobs in the country.
Venture capitalist and Bank Zero chairman Michael Jordaan recently told MyBroadband he believes Eskom is too big for anyone to manage.
Instead of focusing on the role an individual could play in helping to steer the entire ship around, Jordaan believes Eskom should accelerate its unbundling.
This long-delayed process will see Eskom split its generation, transmission, and distribution divisions into separate companies.
“I see no reason why it cannot be done within 100 days, whereafter it will be much easier to appoint various CEOs for the different profit centres,” Jordaan said.
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