In the past I have frequently highlighted the importance of a capable, competent and innovative state. When the Eskom chief restructuring officer was appointed, I expressed disappointment at his lack of experience in the electricity supply industry.
However, the appointment of Andre de Ruyter as the power utility’s new CEO has reopened old wounds I thought had healed.
My experience, and that of many other black professionals of my age who attended white universities during apartheid, is that we faced a racist labour market on completion of our studies. My white classmates were preferred by law and therefore got experience in the labour market. As a result, huge income and experience gaps were created. Despite the affirmative action and employment equity legislation introduced after 1994 to deracialise the labour market, I have accepted that I will never catch up to my white former classmates. Not because they were such excellent performers, but because the law of the land was on their side. Whenever I applied for a job in competition with my former classmates, I was unsuccessful and a lack of experience was cited.
In 1994 the new government, responding to the fears of big business about political change, implemented macroeconomic policies that allowed large corporations to operate relatively unencumbered within and outside SA. In their latest book, Shadow of Liberation, Vishnu Padayachee and Robert van Niekerk say the dumping of the Macro-Economic Research Group report by the ANC made it possible for the ANC, politics, business, civil society and the academy to abandon independent and critical thought and to fall behind a default market-friendly economic policy position that could be summarised as “there is no alternative”.
De Ruyter’s appointment at Eskom should be understood in this light. When applying the Employment Equity Act with two candidates vying for a position with similar experiences in different industries, the disadvantaged candidate should be appointed. De Ruyter has no experience in the sector, nor unique and extraordinary skills. How then did he get appointed over other candidates? It appears as though finance minister Tito Mboweni, an architect of SA’s labour laws, might have had a hand in the appointment. Mboweni chaired the board of Nampak, whose share price has declined more than 80% on De Ruyter’s watch.
When Peter Matlare was in a similar situation at Tiger Brands he walked away, but not De Ruyter. Having lost the support of shareholders, he found a get-out-of-jail card. His appointment is an indication of what the ANC thinks of black professionals. As “clever” blacks, we are not trusted by either the private or the public sector. De Ruyter’s appointment shows that ANC standards are very low, particularly given the rich talent available in terms of highly qualified South Africans with electricity supply industry experience.
In an unpublished doctoral dissertation on SA’s oil-from-coal project and the history of an SA company town, Stephen Sparks describes how nationalist discourses celebrated Sasol’s technological prowess and the “pioneering” toil of SA scientists as a symbol of modernity. The ANC and its tripartite alliance partners also sing the praises of Sasol — Sayishaya bekhona iSasol refers to the sabotage of Sasol by Umkhonto we Sizwe soldiers. Maybe it is this fascination with modernity on the part of President Cyril Ramaphosa that led to De Ruyter, a former Sasol employee, being appointed.
The fact that the viability of oil-from-coal depended on the cheap cost of black labour in the early apartheid period did not matter then, nor does it matter today for nationalists in the ANC. What rings in some ANC leaders’ ears is the cliché that n boer maak olie and now n boer gaan krag maak by Eskom. To borrow from Charles van Onselen’s new book The Night Trains, and paraphrasing, De Ruyter’s appointment symbolises how the useless and arrogant nationalist politicians in the ANC pay lip-service to this country’s history and a constitution that is meant to promote redress and equality.
• Mondi is a senior lecturer in the Wits School of Economic and Business Sciences.
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