André de Ruyter says he doesn’t plan to step down as Eskom’s CEO despite rolling blackouts across South Africa this week, nearly two years after he was appointed to lead the struggling power utility.  

On 15 January 2022, it will be two years since De Ruyter was lured from the private sector and appointed as the 10th CEO of Eskom in as many years. His job was to reform the power utility after years of mismanagement, corruption and neglect in building new generating capacity. 

De Ruyter faces mounting calls to resign for failing to stem the tide of brutal blackouts that continue to leave SA in the dark and undermine any economic recovery efforts. The fourth quarter of 2021 was an opportunity for SA’s economy to recover from strict lockdown measures implemented during the third wave of Covid-19 infections, the week of anarchy in July, and disruptions at Transnet ports and terminals. 

Now, sustained power cuts are set to throw the economy into an even steeper tailspin. Business lobby group the Black Business Council, which says it was “overly optimistic” when De Ruyter was appointed CEO nearly two years ago, has called for his resignation as “the country has nothing to show but the most blackouts in the history of our beloved SA”.

De Ruyter hit back during a marathon Eskom press briefing on Tuesday, saying he doesn’t intend to resign of his own accord because the power utility’s board hasn’t asked him to do so. Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has also not asked him to step down.  

“I serve at the pleasure and discretion of the board. If the board asks me to resign, then I will resign. There haven’t been conversations about me resigning,” says De Ruyter.

He cut short his trip to the Cop26 Climate Summit in Glasgow and flew back to SA on Monday evening to deal with the load shedding that escalated to stage 4 a few days after the local elections and while matriculants are in the middle of their final exams. De Ruyter was in Glasgow to support President Cyril Ramaphosa’s successful efforts to secure a commitment of R130-billion of highly concessional climate financing from developed countries and the EU, to help SA move away from coal to cleaner forms of energy.

De Ruyter doesn’t believe that changing the leadership at Eskom would solve the power crisis while underlying problems persist, such as the urgent need for SA to ramp up its capacity to generate electricity. At the press briefing on Tuesday, he reiterated that Eskom’s ageing coal-fired power stations alone cannot perform optimally to respond to the country’s growing electricity demands.

“You can’t flog a dead horse and change the jockey on the horse. That won’t necessarily solve the problem,” says De Ruyter. 

“It is important to have the continuity of management rather than fall into the trap of having 11 CEOs in the past 10 years. That lack of continuity has contributed to the lack of stability at Eskom. The frustrations around load shedding will not be resolved by changing horses or jockeys at this point.”

Business Unity SA (Busa), another business lobby group, has defended De Ruyter, saying the crisis at Eskom precedes him and that it will take years to reverse the effects of State Capture, which resulted in neglect of maintenance on its ageing power plants.

“Busa rejects these calls [for De Ruyter to resign] and stands 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. We are of the view that 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 SA.

“Eskom’s leadership has been clear; given the state and age of the plant, maintenance alone will not address the real and worsening supply crisis — new capacity must urgently be added to the grid.”

Fuelling the calls for De Ruyter to resign is the promise he made nearly two years ago that the risk of load shedding would be greatly reduced over 18 months. The promise of a stabilised power grid has not been kept. 

But De Ruyter doesn’t believe that SA’s power system is on the “brink of a total collapse”, saying that the country has the “best system operators in the world” who can respond fast to plant breakdowns. 

He said the blame for the latest bout of blackouts cannot only be laid on Eskom, but also on municipalities that refuse to comply with its lo​​ad shedding schedule because they have procured additional power supply capacity from private sources. He says this is a “new challenge” in Eskom’s 14-year history of load shedding.

“Some municipalities have not played their role in implementing load shedding. During stage two load shedding, municipalities didn’t comply with their role of implementing load shedding. This has put us in a position of deepening the load shedding from stage two to stage four,” he said. 

Only eThekwini and Buffalo City have complied with Eskom’s load shedding schedule. This means that there are more than 160 offending municipalities that have snubbed Eskom’s schedule.  

De Ruyter says load shedding will ease to stage two in the coming days and possibly be lifted at the weekend. DM/BM

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