Eskom

Eskom. Photo: File

Eskom board determined to root out ‘weak management’

The state-owned power utility has for years has struggled to manage supply from ageing coal-fired power plants and has imposed intermittent blackouts.

Eskom

Eskom. Photo: File

The Eskom board says it supports group CE André de Ruyter’s decision to suspend the managers at two power station, pending disciplinary inquiries.

The utility suspended the general managers of the Kendal and Tutuka power stations for poor performance that led to load shedding measures being escalated from Stage 2 to Stage 4 on September 2 and 3, or was it Stage 6?

“While it is true that the ageing fleet is plagued by legacy issues of neglect and omitted maintenance, and is therefore susceptible to unpredictable breakdowns, it is also true that the situation is being exacerbated by serious issues of apathetic behaviour by some management staff.”

Eskom’s gross debt increased to R488 billion as of March 2020, from R440 billion a year earlier, the floundering firm said in a presentation to parliament on Wednesday.

Competency audit

It’s understood that during a meeting between the Eskom board, its executive management and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, it was agreed that an urgent culture change and high-level competence enhancement across the utility’s 44 000 staff should be “accelerated, promoted and strongly supported.”

Eskom says it has held discussions with other power stations managers to press home that the previous culture of weak consequence management will no longer be tolerated.

The Eskom board added that while it was pleased that some units had returned to power, they remained concerned that the level of failures was unacceptably high.

De Ruyter has, in the meantime, deployed three senior power generation managers to provide in-person leadership and oversight at Kendal, Tutuka, Duvha and Kriel power stations.

We’re watching you says OUTA

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) said they’re ‘keeping a close eye’ on the disciplinary proceedings unfolding at the embattled state-owned power utility, EWN reported Saturday.

It added that Eskom was stuck between a rock and a hard place but that it was was happy with this sign of accountability.

“Sometimes the devil is in the detail and we have to look at what really comes out over the next few weeks,” said the organisation’s energy portfolio manager Liz McDaid. 

“Somebody has to make sure that the coal is on time at the plant, someone has to make sure that the repairs happen on time and in budget and that should be the general manager.”

Eskom not being honest about load shedding?

This, as energy analyst Ted Blom told eNCA Saturday that Eskom is not being honest with South Africans about load-shedding.

He says the power utility implemented Stage 6 load-shedding on Thursday as the grid shed nearly 6,000 megawatts of power.

“They had declared load-shedding Stage 4 on Wednesday and Thursday night, however, when I got the statistics after the peak hour I saw that they had dumped about 5,300MW of power. So that’s Stage 6, it’s up to 6,000MW, is level 6 because it is more than 5,000.”

Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha responded by charging that Blom “doesn’t understand Eskom statistics.”

“Ted Blom got this from the statistics that Eskom publishes every evening, that I personally tweet, we just put all of that in one line in addition to the 4,000MW of stage 4 load-shedding, we add this load curtailment,” he told the broadcaster.