The inefficient governance of South Africa's state-owned enterprises is largely to blame for the loss of public confidence in these companies, which belong to all South Africans.
This is why every South African must be allowed to voice their approval or disapproval of decisions taken at SOEs without being dismissed with disdain.
The extraordinary decision to rotate CEOs by the board of Eskom - a public entity that is in the throes of state capture allegations involving the Gupta family and which has accounted for 85% of all tender deviations, worth R37-billion as revealed by the National Treasury this week - is a case in point.
Everyone agrees that South Africa needs to get governance right, but when you have leaders in SOEs such as Eskom chairman Zethembe Khoza offering us rotating CEOs, which has no credibility anywhere in the world, I can't help but think they have run out of ideas. The tepid defence that Khoza and the board have mounted against criticism is nothing but balderdash.
The least the board can do is give the law-abiding, tax-paying citizens of this country some respect. Any self-respecting spin doctor will tell you that if you are going to try to make the public believe your perspective, at least part of your spin must be truthful.
The best example of CEO rotation in any company is China's Huawei Technologies, ranked among the world's top 500 companies. Since 2011, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei has had three rotating acting CEOs.
But unlike at Eskom, Zhengfei has remained the overall CEO, responsible for all decision-making, while the acting CEOs lead the company when he is not around. While Huawei rotates acting CEOs for succession planning, Eskom has held on to its spin that rotation will give its executives "exposure".
Some companies rotate executives that have been identified as future leaders into different positions to give them a holistic view of operations.
Someone should tell the Eskom board that the position of CEO in any company is not something to experiment with or use to play corporate musical chairs.
This is crucial in Eskom's case, because any whiff of instability at the utility could threaten power supply, and investors held onto their purses when the country could not guarantee power supply during the 2008 load-shedding crisis.
Johnny Dladla held the acting position for just four months before being unceremoniously removed, and spinning his removal as CEO rotation is a weak attempt at accountability from the Eskom board.
In an astonishing move, the first act of Dladla's replacement as CEO, Sean Maritz, was to suspend Eskom's legal head, Suzanne Daniels, whose report allegedly exposed the multimillion-rand contracts with McKinsey and Trillian.
At face value, Daniels's suspension smacks of a board that disagreed with her report exposing the suspended acting CEO, Matshela Koko, for signing off on the R1.6-billion McKinsey and Trillian contract and pre-payments made to the Gupta-linked Tegeta.
I had an opportunity to ask Khoza whether rotating the CEO was a good idea for an SOE that has gone through as many scandals as it has CEOs, and his answer was unconvincing and dismissive.
"The benefit to the company is that you get exposure, you share your experiences. We're human and we can share skills that can enhance the organisation. All those contributions help the company improve," said Khoza, adding that Eskom would monitor Maritz while the board advertises the position of CEO.
"People will always have a different opinion and that's why we're in a democratic society. We have to explore the talent given to us," Khoza said.
Asked whether this rotation would not risk Eskom's stability, Khoza said: "That's your opinion, but I think the board has applied its mind."
If Khoza had said the board was trying its hand at succession planning, that would have been plausible, but with the facts before me, I do not believe him.
It seems the chairman and the board are hellbent on ensuring nobody pursues allegations of state capture at Eskom. This may not be true, but it's what it looks like, because Eskom's attempt at convincing the public on CEO rotation has fallen flat.
Next time they should tell a better lie.
• Khumalo is chief operating officer of MSG Afrika and presents Power Business on Power98.7 at 6pm, Monday to Thursday
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