Eskom chairman Mteto Nyati has admitted he was wrong to tell President Cyril Ramaphosa that former CEO André de Ruyter was right for the job.
Nyati made the comments in an interview with the Sunday Times, MyBroadband reported. He said his view of De Ruyter changed after he joined the Eskom board.
“That’s when I realised that I made a mistake when I said to the president that the leadership was fine for that business,” Nyati said.
Nyati said Ramaphosa offered him De Ruyter’s job in September 2022. He turned it down and asked the president to give De Ruyter more support instead.
“Personally, when I was looking from the outside, I felt that André was touching the right things, saying the right things,” he said.
He said he felt De Ruyter needed more backing from the board, rather than being replaced. Nyati said most of Eskom’s problems at the time had causes that “came from a long time ago”.
Nyati offered to serve on the board instead of taking the CEO post. He said he believed replacing De Ruyter would have harmed the utility.
He became a non-executive director of Eskom’s board in October 2022. Mpho Makwana was the board chairperson at the time.
Nyati said his mind changed when he began visiting power stations and talking to frontline staff.
“I then realised that there was a big disconnect between André and his leadership team and the people on the ground. Completely,” he said.
He said staff had become frustrated with De Ruyter and his team. According to Nyati, the leadership did not value the workers properly.
“These people, they know what needs to be done, they are clear, but nobody is listening, nobody is listening,” he said.
“And they’re so frustrated. They listened to their leaders on TV saying all of these things about them, and it just was such a dysfunctional environment.”
Nyati said the culture inside Eskom had to be fixed for the utility to succeed.
“Eskom is an engineering company. You need to follow standard operating procedures; that’s just how things are done. If you don’t follow those procedures, you should not be surprised when things break,” he said.
De Ruyter led Eskom from January 2020 until February 2023. South Africa faced its worst load-shedding during that time.
He joined a month after Eskom first used Stage 6 load-shedding in December 2019. His plans included more planned maintenance, splitting up the utility, fighting corruption and moving towards renewable energy.
De Ruyter left Eskom in February 2023 after an hour-long interview with e.tv’s Annika Larsen. In that interview, he claimed top politicians were involved in corruption and sabotage at the utility.
Source: this article is based on reporting by MyBroadband. Image: MyBroadband. 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.