SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Edward Kieswetter has taken another swipe at former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter, saying he could have led his troops better and got a better performance from the utility’s struggling and ageing power plants he managed.
Speaking at a summit hosted by professional services firm Deloitte, Kieswetter said De Ruyter’s broad statements about the poor performance of the ageing fleet demotivated staff at power station level.
“To make the broad claims that the power plants are old, and you cannot expect them to perform any better, imagine a young power station at Matla, struggling to keep the boilers and turbines on. How does that inspire you, and to hear your leadership saying they are old and cannot perform any better?
“That was a fundamentally flawed narrative,” the commissioner said.
Kieswetter has qualifications in electrical engineering and other disciplines and started his working career at Eskom. Insiders at Eskom said he turned down an approach by the government to take over the helm at the utility.
“I know what it is like to be a power station manager, to get up at 2am, get onto the boiler, you look at what the contractors are doing, you ask why it takes seven days to fix a boiler tube leak, leave your family behind in winter, and drive through those dangerous roads in Witbank.”
Tuesday’s criticism follows a similar swipe by Kieswetter at De Ruyter’s leadership of Eskom a week ago.
He was quoted on the SABC as saying De Ruyter should be blamed for the dismal performance of Eskom. He said then that the former Eskom CEO spent an inordinate amount of time pushing wind and solar while neglecting its current capacity.
De Ruyter, who was serving his notice period, was released from his position with immediate effect last week after an interview with eNCA in which he said leaders of the governing ANC have used Eskom as a “feeding trough”.
He said SA needs to move away from binary or unscientific conversations about the energy crisis and for the government to develop a “coherent plan of action” to fix Eskom.
Kieswetter said it is inexplicable that a power station such as Kusile has an energy availability factor — a total output measure — of below 50%.
“The leadership needed to have focused on the discipline of plant performance,” he said.
The National Treasury’s deputy director-general for public finance, Mampho Modise, said resolving the energy crisis and fast-tracking SA’s structural reforms are key parts of getting out of a low-growth trap.
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