POWER SHAKE-UP
Pravin Gordhan announces new lineup of full 13-member Eskom board — with some expertise
For the first time since 2018, all 13 vacancies on the Eskom board have been filled. Of the 13 non-executive directors on the new Eskom board, five have expertise in the fields of engineering, energy policy and electricity delivery. André de Ruyter is set to remain in place as CEO.
The government has announced a shake-up of the Eskom board, replacing its chair and appointing 13 non-executive directors who collectively bring engineering, energy policy and delivery, and accounting expertise.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, with the support of his Cabinet colleagues, made sweeping changes to the Eskom board as the government has faced intense criticism from business leaders and opposition political parties for nearly three straight weeks of rolling blackouts.
Gordhan and his Cabinet has also confirmed that there will be no changes in Eskom’s executive leadership comprising CEO André de Ruyter, chief financial officer Calib Cassim, and chief operations officer Jan Oberholzer. The trio will remain in charge of the power utility’s day-to-day operations.
Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘The collapse of old king coal: Eskom’s short but brutal road to ruin’
Gordhan has mostly replaced the entire Eskom board but has retained one non-executive director to allow for continuity. Gordhan has retained Dr Rod Crompton, an expert in policy on energy, who will be part of the new Eskom board.
Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, the previous Eskom board chair, who is a qualified and experienced immunologist and physician, has been replaced by Mpho Makwana, who returns to the power utility.
Makwana was the acting CEO of Eskom from 2009 and 2010, leading the power utility’s team that kept the lights on during the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Gordhan has described him as “a casualty of the State Capture era”.
After his short stint as Eskom’s acting CEO, Makwana went to the private sector, working for companies including Nedbank, ArcelorMittal South Africa, Invicta Holdings, BTE Renewables and Platinum Group Metals.
Makwana becomes Eskom’s ninth board chair in 15 years, and the new board brings the tally of non-executive directors on it to more than 60 over the same period.
Eskom, which can have a maximum of 13 non-executive directors, has operated for nearly three years with only six individuals, who have drawn scrutiny for their lack of engineering expertise.
When asked why it has taken so long to appoint a board and fill vacancies, Gordhan said during a press briefing on Friday 30 September, “We can dwell on the past… but a decision has been taken now and there is a new board in place.”
For the first time since 2018, all 13 vacancies on the Eskom board have been filled. Of the 13 non-executive directors on the new Eskom board, five have experience in the field of engineering, energy policy and electricity delivery.
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These are the new board members:
- Mpho Makwana is the new Eskom board chair.
- Busisiwe Vilakazi, who holds a BPhil in engineering science from Oxford University. She’s the head of research innovation at the State Information Technology Agency.
- Lwazi Goqwana has a background in manufacturing, construction, financial services, logistics, and energy. He previously worked in the Department of Public Works. From 2019 to 2021, he was on the ministerial task team improvements and recommendations for Eskom.
- Mthetho Nyathi has a degree in mechanical engineering and was chief executive of MTN SA. He served in IBM and Microsoft, as well as group CEO at Altron.
- Leslie Mkhabela is an attorney, experienced in the restructuring of state-owned assets.
- Fatima Ghani is a chartered accountant operating within the financial sector in various capacities, as well as in businesses that have operated in the middle east and across the African continent.
- Ayanda Mafuleka is a chartered accountant and CEO of Fasset, a Sector Education and Training Authority for the finance, accounting, and management consulting sectors.
- Tsakani Mthombeni has experience working for mining giants Gold Fields and Anglo American. A senior engineer, Mthombeni was responsible for ensuring that Anglo’s mining operations adapted to climate change.
- Claudelle von Eck is a change management expert.
- Tryphosa Romano is a chartered accountant whose experience includes overseeing the assets and liabilities of National Treasury and being CFO at cement company PPC.
- Bheki Ntshalintshali is a trade unionist and previously the general secretary of Cosatu.
- Clive le Roux was chief nuclear officer at Eskom, having had key roles at Koeberg and Matimba. Le Roux has been helping Eskom in the last ten years but is now retired. He was a member of the team of experienced engineers familiar with the Eskom plant.
- Rod Crompton is director of the Energy Leadership Centre at Wits Business School. He has experience in policy, strategy and economic regulation in the energy sector.
The new board has been appointed on a three-year term, effective from 1 October 2022. Gordhan said the mandate of the new board will include, among other things, supporting the efforts of Eskom’s executive leadership to improve the performance of its power stations, which are susceptible to breakdowns that cause rolling blackouts. One of the board’s mandates will be to improve Eskom’s energy availability factor (EAF), a measure of its available plants to dispatch energy, to above 70% by 2024.
Despite increasing breakdowns in Eskom’s power plants, Gordhan said the 2024 EAF target was still realistic and achievable.
Eskom’s EAF has been on a downward trend for a decade, reaching 84.5% in 2011, falling further to 66.6% by 2020, and now languishing at 56.6%. DM/BM
Instant reaction here from energy analyst Chris Yelland:
I am relieved & heartened that we are not seeing some of the noisy, populist, discredited, former Eskom executives, acting CEOs & CEOs, including the criminally implicated tweeting engineer, being appointed to the Eskom board. Instead the appointments are respected professionals.
— Chris Yelland (@chrisyelland) September 30, 2022
The opposition Democratic Alliance said in a statement that the appointments had been “overshadowed by the deployment of an ANC cadre, Mr Bheki Ntshalintshali, who brings no value to Eskom”.
It said: his appointment “is nothing more than a cheap attempt to fulfill the ANC’s cadre deployment quota in a state owed enterprise. Ntshalintshali’s has simply been given a soft landing after he was rejected by Cosatu delegates.For the rest of the Board, the jury is still out. Although an attempt was made to bring some individuals with a heavy engineering background, the government did not go far enough – and some are simply recycled executives with no engineering experience.”
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Busisiwe Vilakazi has a D Phil not a B Phil from Oxford. This is a serious error.
Really? … in the light of the absence of any heavy engineering, energy or power experience.
The experience and skills of the new board members is a good mix, with the exception of a unionist who can offer nothing more than defend a grossly bloated workforce.
Perhaps in a perfect world, yes. But we don’t live in a perfect world, and it’s critical to include a link to the union movement even if it’s only Proforma. Stop nitpicking.
I agree. Got to move on otherwise nothing will improve. Always some naysayers
Ntshalintshali the spy for COSATU
You need someone who has the ear of the unionists in a big conglomerate the size of Eskom, otherwise they can easily undo all the good work that management and the new board achieve. Don’t underrate the power of the noisy disruptive lot.
Means nothing if the new board is going to take direction from government.
If they don’t deal with cadre deployment (beyond just the board), tenderpreneurs and organized mafia style sabotage, I cannot see any improvements on the cards.
If we do not remove all Anc/governmental influence from Eskom, I also agree, I cannot see any realistic improvements taking place.
As discussed in another comment of mine – in essence, “First Prize would be if we could get the ANC to privatise Eskom soonest.” The private owner may then be advised retrench all existing staff and management and give them the option to reapply for re-employment under the new owner – get rid of the bad and keep the good people.
A private owner would be driven by making changes to improve profits. And would not consider cadre deployment nor the continued looting of Eskom.
This is the only way to turn eskom around immediately. But imagine trying to convince the ANC to relinquish control of Eskom??? We may be able to force their hands by requesting a referendum but we would experience a lot of resistance… I still believe this is possible but we would require a lot of support from clear thinking , honest South Africans. Refer to Dm Comments in ‘Eskom is Killing us”
Rod Crompton comes from the COSATU background, the Chemical Industrial Workers Union that is Ceppwawu now. His expertise is in the petroleum and gas industry hence they burn a lot of diesel to keep the lights on! The board is very light on coal power stations engineering that is the core of Eskom fleet. You do not need so many accountants on the board if you have internal audit and the company secretary. The board remains very thin on engineering skills for heavy electrical engineering and coal technology. Whatever Chris Yelland whose papers I have read, says about Matshela Koko, he personally lacks the experience on running an energy fleet. He can never take away Matshela Koko’s experience, skills and knowledge. I would suggest that we arrest those involved in state capture and prosecute them in courts than in the media. We must not use state capture to hide incompetence at operational level at Eskom and we must avoid the defence of de Ruyter because of his colour. He was a failure at Sasol and at Nampak period!
An exercise in futility – nothing will happen until they weed out the criminal element in the management ranks
From the outside it seems the CEO and COO have no control over power station managers who in turn have no control over the staff and suppliers that raid the power stations. What odds 13 suits in a boardroom are going to wield any influence? The rational solutions are logical and well-known. They are not implemented because they are politically unpalatable (place all default users on permanent stage 8), harm cadre interests (scrap special cheap electricity schemes from Eskom operations) and embarrassing to admit (move R250b of Eskom debt off its balance sheet and thereby from the expenses eskom tariffs must recover. My energy costs are insane. Were it not for the recent drop in the runt, my energy cost would be higher than Los Angeles. I will make my own plans and in 2023 produce more than 1 GWh. not a typo – one million kWh self-provisoned self consumed
The new Board starts life with a chairman who was a director of Eskom when Eskom awarded a R30 billion plus contract to Hitachi Power Africa for the Medupi and Kusile boilers. At the same time Chancellor House, an ANC front company, was a substantial shareholder in Hitachi Power Africa. This obvious conflict of interest either didn’t concern him or he turned a blind eye or he was ignorant of it. Not sure which, but in any event it casts an unwanted shadow over his integrity. Given the ANC’s track record with State Capture at Eskom and it’s attempt to rid itself of the corruption mantle it is really puzzling why they are unable to appoint leaders whose track record is exemplary in every respect?
A very good point.
Really? I don’t see it as a necessity for a member on the board to have links to a union movement. His previous position as general secretary of Cosatu tell one where his sympathies lie and brings no expertise to Eskom.
Do you see this fellow sorting out the sabotage that is taking place at factory floor level?
“We can dwell on the past… but a decision has been taken now and there is a new board in place.” Minister Gordhan you cannot wipe out the past so easily. the past was the present then and Cabinet did nothing regarding Eskom hence the mess we are in. if you really want to wipe out the past so easily tell your colleagues to do the same with their whining about the whole past of this country if you are going to treat the past with that much disdain. perhaps you can give something back to the people by not allowing ESKOM ridiculous price increases for the next ten years and get rid of the bloated and over salaried staff in the entity.
All I can say is Hallelujah and kudos to those talented individuals prepared to step into the ring.
Missing is a senior ex Scorpion who would be responsible for the overseeing the Portfolio of Corruption and Sabotage.
You need a Chief Risk Officer (CRO) at operational level as an Executive who would run a fully functional risk management at enterprise and operational level. This would include all aspects of security and risks in procurement and specifications as well as storage of spare parts. The identification and assessment of risks seems to be a key issue at Eskom. Physical security for the power stations would fall under the CRO.
A qualified and experienced immunologist and physician as a previous chairman of a power utility, THAT SAYS IT ALL
I’ve invested in a candle factory
Try a solar/wind energy source company. Your investment can easily ‘melt’ away!.
It is a step forward but there are far too few Directors with engineering and operational experience. Eskom is a large industrial business and requires technical expertise to run it. Time will tell but I’m not convinced this Board will make much of a difference. Let’s hope I am wrong.