André de Ruyter to leave Eskom with immediate effect

André De Ruyter will leave Eskom with immediate effect.

He clearly ruffled feathers with a no-holds-barred interview in which he laid bare the extent of the ANC’s complicity in corruption at Eskom. 

His “immediate” departure was announced late on Wednesday. The Eskom board decided De Ruyter would not serve out his notice period in a special board meeting as finance minister Enoch Godongwana tabled his 2023 budget. 

The move leaves the ailing power utility leaderless, after the board only kicked off the process to appoint his replacement two weeks ago, despite De Ruyter submitting his resignation in December.

This comes as load-shedding escalated to stage six over the weekend — with the utility now shedding 7000MW from the grid, the most ever.  

His sudden departure follows an explosive interview with eNCA's Annika Larsen, in which he directly fingered an ANC MP in the corruption at Eskom. His revelation prompted a stinging rebuke from public enterprise minister Pravin Gordhan, who warned in parliament on Wednesday that De Ruyter should not “meddle” in politics. 

Eskom in a statement said it was “mutually agreed” that De Ruyter would leave on February 28. He resigned late last year and a departure date of March 31 was announced. 

“The board further resolved that Mr De Ruyter will not be required to serve the balance of his notice period, but that he will be released from his position with immediate effect,” Eskom said in a statement. An acting CEO would be announced “shortly”.

De Ruyter told Larsen there was evidence to indicate that some in the ANC saw Eskom as a “feeding trough”.

“I expressed my concern to a senior government minister about attempts — in my view — to water down governance around the $8.5bn that, by and large through Eskom intervention, we got at COP26.

“The response was essentially, ‘you know, you have to be pragmatic — in order to pursue the greater good, you have to enable some people to eat a little bit’. So yes, I think it is entrenched,” he said in the interview. He did not name the ANC leader, but said they remained in government.

The DA has announced that it would launch a court application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act to obtain the identity of the ANC MP mentioned by De Ruyter. 

De Ruyter confirmed views that the ANC was pulling out all the stops to fix Eskom in order to bolster its elective prospects in 2024. He told Larsen the party was more interested in short-term political gain than long-term sustainability for the country. 

“They want what will win them the next election — not what will keep the country going for the next two decades. I think that balance has been disturbed by turning Eskom into a state-owned entity under the direct control of the department of public enterprises,” he said. 

“That department has played a very interventionist role, micromanagement even, at Eskom.”

The ANC, however, decided at its national conference in December to place Eskom under the mineral resources & energy department, a portfolio currently held by ANC chair Gwede Mantashe.

In an interview with the Financial Mail last week, De Ruyter suggested the lack of political support was at the heart of his decision to resign. Still, he would have stayed on, but for a conspiracy-laden broadside by Mantashe, mineral resources & energy minister, in December. 

At the time, Mantashe said: “Eskom, by not attending to load-shedding, is actively agitating for the overthrow of the state.” It was a loopy statement, coming days after he’d accused De Ruyter of “acting like a policeman” in trying to stop the crooks bleeding Eskom dry. De Ruyter told the Financial Mail that Mantashe’s assault “was the final straw”.

“It was not only what he said, it was also the fact that there was no political support from elsewhere — no-one said: ‘Hey, this guy may not be perfect, but he’s certainly not trying to overthrow the state’.”

Update: February 22 2023

This story has been updated with new information.