André de Ruyter under fire
Eskom board chair Mteto Nyati has alleged that if André de Ruyter were still CEO of the power utility, he would be getting more credit for its turnaround than current CEO Dan Marokane is receiving.
This comes after electricity and energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said he believes the state power utility made a mistake when it appointed De Ruyter as CEO in December 2019.
“If André de Ruyter had done half of what Dan Marokane has done in Eskom, he would be called Mr Fix-it,” Nyati said.
“Instead, Dan’s efforts are overlooked, attributing Eskom’s turnaround to the private sector or a miracle. Bigotry continues to cloud the judgement of some people. What a shame.”
Nyati took over the Eskom board chair role in October 2023, and according to Ramokgopa, a key aspect of Eskom’s turnaround was appointing competent leadership from the board level down to power station managers.
In a recent interview, Ramokgopa said Nyati and the competent set of individuals on the Eskom board have cut their teeth in the electricity sector — something De Ruyter had not before taking the helm.
Moreover, he said the individuals with expertise in the electricity sector are coupled with business leaders who have successfully operated complex organisations.
“They understand the issues of governance and how you steer an organisation the size of Eskom into calmer waters and out of a period of turbulence,” said Ramokgopa.
He initially indicated that Eskom lacked these factors under the leadership of De Ruyter and later confirmed that he was speaking about the former CEO.
“I think we misdirected ourselves previously when we got someone at the helm who does not have an appreciation of how to run a utility of this nature,” said Ramokgopa.
The minister said he wasn’t attacking the individual’s reputation or integrity, but rather highlighting the lessons to be learned and unlearned from the experience.
“It goes without saying that the immediate predecessor to Mr Marokane was Mr De Ruyter,” Ramokgopa said when asked to be unequivocal about who he was referring to.
Distrust of Eskom employees
After being named Eskom CEO in December 2019, De Ruyter officially took over at the power utility in January 2020, when he announced the launch of a maintenance plan to improve power station performance.
In his announcement, he said South Africa would experience far less load-shedding from September 2021.
However, this prediction didn’t materialise. Load-shedding continued and reached record levels during his tenure.
It wasn’t all bad news under De Ruyter. While at the helm, Eskom was able to reduce debt and implement corruption-fighting programmes at the utility.
However, Ramokgopa previously implied that De Ruyter did not trust Eskom’s employees’ ability to address the power utility’s crisis.
“The moment that you distrust your employees and lose confidence in them, you send a message that they don’t have the capability to solve the problem,” the minister said.
He added that this leads to employees withdrawing from trying to solve the problem and leaving “leadership to their devices as they think they know better.”
Another challenge was the view that everyone at Eskom was corrupt and incompetent during De Ruyter’s time as CEO.
There were also various reports from within the utility that there were concerted efforts to collapse the organisation.
“There were indeed bad elements. However, most men and women at Eskom are competent, skilled, committed, and patriotic,” the minister said.
“All they needed to do their work was for someone to support them and provide an incentive dispensation.”
The former CEO left Eskom at short notice in late February 2023 after making explosive allegations during an interview with E-tv’s Annika Larsen.
He alleged that South African politicians, particularly those who were ANC members, were complicit in corruption and sabotage that crippled the utility.
He also released a book, Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom, in which he gave an in-depth look at how corruption hammered the state-owned power utility.
Following his quick exit from the utility, De Ruyter moved overseas, which he said was for safety reasons.
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