Eskom board chair Mteto Nyati has explained how his board helped end load shedding and return the power utility to profit. He spoke in a Moneyweb interview about his time at Eskom.
His term as chair was set to end in October. It has now been extended for three more years.
“The problems of Eskom are self-inflicted. They are within its control,” Nyati said in the interview.
President Cyril Ramaphosa asked Nyati to join the Eskom board in September 2022. At that time, the country faced Stage 6 load shedding every day. Many areas went without power for about 10 hours.
Nyati is a mechanical engineer and a former CEO of MTN SA and Altron. He said he never applied for the job. “They were all hand-picked, approached because of their expertise,” he said of the board members.
He joined as a non-executive director in October 2022. The new board was chaired by Mpho Makwana at the time.
The board set up a Business Operations Performance Committee, which Nyati led. Its engineers and finance experts visited power stations and spoke to plant managers.
According to Nyati, the committee found that 75% of Eskom’s problems came from only six of its 15 power stations. The board chose to focus on those worst performers first.
Then public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan set a target for the energy availability factor. He wanted 60% by March 2023 and 70% by March 2025. This measure shows how much power station capacity is ready to supply electricity.
The board hired consulting firm WSP to check the work at power stations. “Management could be telling us one thing about power stations, but we needed to independently verify claims,” Nyati said.
Nyati picked Bheki Nxumalo, then CEO of Eskom Rotek Industries, to head generation. Nxumalo set three conditions, including an end to the public trashing of Eskom staff. Within months, he had replaced nearly half of the power station managers.
The government gave Eskom R230 billion in debt relief. Eskom’s debt was more than R300 billion. Rules were also changed to let homes and businesses make their own power.
Eskom was also exempted from localisation rules. This let it buy power station parts directly from the original makers.
In 2023, the board budgeted R30 billion for diesel to make space for maintenance. “2023 was bad. It was the worst year ever,” Nyati said.
The energy availability factor is now near 70%, and load shedding has ended. In September 2025, Eskom reported a R14 billion after-tax profit, its first in eight years. In 2026 it reported a profit of R30.3 billion.
Nyati said municipalities owe Eskom R119.9 billion. He called this “the single greatest threat to Eskom’s financial stability”.
“We cannot allow a culture of municipalities not paying for electricity and writing that debt off,” he said.
Eskom is also losing sales as more homes and businesses use solar and wind power. Its answer is Eskom Green, a unit that will build solar and wind capacity and sell clean energy.
Nyati said the move to new energy also needs baseload power such as nuclear. It will need 14 000km of new transmission lines to connect renewable energy projects.
Source: this article is based on reporting by The Citizen. Image: The Citizen. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Business desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Anelisa Nkuna covers business and money news for Tzaneen Voice. Anelisa reports on the rand, fuel prices, interest rates, jobs, Eskom, Transnet, farming and company results. The aim is simple: explain what the numbers mean for household budgets, small businesses and workers in South Africa.