Former president Thabo Mbeki has pointed the finger at the political leadership for SA’s economic challenges, including the electricity crisis — which for the second time in two months has plunged the country into some of the worst rolling blackouts yet.
To alleviate the power issues — which have dampened business confidence, contributed to the second-quarter economic contraction and added pain to inflation-hit South Africans — Mbeki suggests that the Eskom leadership, comprising “politicians and accountants”, should be re-evaluated.
“The major challenge we are facing in this country is the challenge of leadership,” Mbeki said on Wednesday.
“We need to look at the leadership at Eskom.
“Eskom is a big engineering institution and ... it is a big energy business. It needs engineers at the helm, but instead we have doctors and politicians,” Mbeki said in an address to students and diplomats at Unisa, echoing the views of former statistician-general Pali Lehohla.
"[We have] enormous challenges to the politics, economics, [and] matters of peace and security and safety of the population. A critical ingredient we need to resolve those problems is good leadership in government and in society.”
Mbeki’s comments come as President Cyril Ramaphosa chaired a cabinet meeting on Wednesday at which the implementation of escalating power cuts by Eskom over the past two weeks topped the agenda.
Business Day reported on Tuesday that the cabinet would consider sweeping changes to the Eskom board and executive management.
Mbeki, who was president when it became clear in 2008 that SA was on the brink of a power crisis and later apologised for failing to heed 1998 warnings of the impending crisis, also blamed tender processes for the problems at the Kusile and Medupi power stations, saying it was poorly handled by the Eskom leadership at the time.
The Medupi plant, which was commissioned in 2007 and started coming online in 2015, has, like Kusile, been beset by budget overruns, delays and many design faults. They were commissioned when Eskom began implementing load-shedding as part of its plans to alleviate power constraints.
“It is now 2022. Why does it take so many years [to fix the problem]?” Mbeki asked.
Eskom has previously stated that it needs at least an additional 5,000MW to stabilise the grid and allow for planned maintenance, which is crucial for the old, breakdown-prone power stations it runs.
During Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan presented a briefing on the capacity of Eskom and a progress report from the technical committee of the National Energy Crisis Committee, which was set up by Ramaphosa in August to oversee the implementation of the president’s energy action plan.
“Cabinet is still deliberating on these reports, and following further interventions announcements will be made,” government spokesperson Phumla Williams said.
The cabinet’s statement is likely to disappoint business leaders, who may be struggling to convince their boards to pump money into an economy with unstable power supply.
“We expect a substantial response from cabinet as soon as possible so that the public sees strong political leadership,” said Business Unity SA CEO Cas Coovadia.
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