{"id":371992,"date":"2020-10-25T12:59:13","date_gmt":"2020-10-25T10:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=371992"},"modified":"2020-10-25T13:00:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-25T11:00:03","slug":"fixing-eskom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/371992-fixing-eskom.html","title":{"rendered":"Fixing Eskom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom was once one of the world\u2019s leading power producers and by the end of 1990 it supplied more than half the electricity in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>What is particularly impressive was Eskom\u2019s efficiency. In its 1994 annual report, it promoted the fact that it was the world\u2019s lowest-cost producer of electricity.<\/p>\n<p>Fast-forward 25 years and Eskom is a shadow of its former self. It is unable to keep the lights on and South Africans are now paying more than ever for this unstable electricity supply.<\/p>\n<p>It is also battling with widespread corruption and mismanagement, a bloated workforce, and an ageing power generation fleet which has not been properly maintained.<\/p>\n<p>Corruption is so rampant at the company that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) had to refer 5,500 Eskom officials for disciplinary proceedings for dishonest dealings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/362886-here-is-the-full-list-of-people-implicated-in-alleged-eskom-corruption.html\"><strong>Eskom and the SIU are also trying<\/strong><\/a> to recover R3.8 billion from former Eskom executives, former board members, the Gupta family, and their associates.<\/p>\n<p>Eskom said the funds were lost in a concerted effort to corruptly divert financial resources from the company.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/371471-arrests-made-in-eskom-corruption-probe.html\"><strong>Arrests have also been made<\/strong><\/a> in relation to unlawful payments that were traced to Eskom officials pointed to evidence of fraud, money laundering, and corruption.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Turning Eskom around<\/h3>\n<p>To turn Eskom around is a mammoth task considering the culture of poor performance and corruption at the company.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to The Money Show\u2019s Bruce Whitfield, energy analyst Chris Yelland said there has been a lack of accountability at Eskom up to the highest levels.<\/p>\n<p>This, he said, can partly be blamed on the structure of Eskom which only has one shareholder \u2013 the state.<\/p>\n<p>Since the state is playing with taxpayers\u2019 money \u2013 hence not their own money \u2013 accountability for poor performance is lacking.<\/p>\n<p>It is, however, changing under new Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter, who is now acting against poor-performing executives.<\/p>\n<p>Yelland said this is long overdue, as it is essential to drive a culture of excellence for an organization to succeed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEskom used to be known as an excellent state-owned enterprise \u2013 very different from many of the other SOEs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>However, over the last decade, the culture at Eskom changed radically where mediocrity and outright bad performance was tolerated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDe Ruyter is now driving a new culture of accountability and excellence and he has to be applauded for this,\u201d said Yelland.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Chris Yelland interview<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/omny.fm\/shows\/the-money-show\/special-investigations-unit-is-probing-over-5000-1\/embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"180px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/362886-here-is-the-full-list-of-people-implicated-in-alleged-eskom-corruption.html\">Here is the full list of people implicated in alleged Eskom corruption<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom used to be a world leading power producer, but years of corruption and mismanagement have gutted the company. It is now trying to get back to where it was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":371996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27995],"tags":[61891,10034,181,35],"class_list":["post-371992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-andre-de-ruyter","tag-chris-yelland","tag-eskom","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371992"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372680,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371992\/revisions\/372680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}