ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe has lashed out and strongly condemned accusations that former Eskom chair Bobby Godsell is a racist. Godsell resigned yesterday and Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga has gone back to work.

“What is happening at Eskom constitutes a crisis - one of the things we think everybody in the country must be careful off, is when there is a crisis people begin to be personal and begin to go to the lowest levels of irrationality, by beginning to accuse Godsell of being a racist,” says Mantashe.

Mantashe says people must focus on the crisis at hand and try to address it.

Chairperson of Parliament Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises, Vytjie Mentoor says the way forward is to learn from what happened at Eskom the past week. Such talk follows a confirmation from Minister of Public Enterprises Barbara Hogan that she has received former Eskom chairperson Bobby Godsell's resignation. 

She also confirmed that Maroga has gone back to work. The minister has appointed Mpho Makwana as acting chair of Eskom's Board. 

Government has thus far maintained that it would not intervene in the leadership squabbles at state utilities.

Resignation could put off investors

Economists say the resignation of Eskom chairperson is a big blow that could put off foreign investors concerned about political intervention. CEO of Business Unity South Africa, Jerry Vilakazi, says investors are missing the point but the issue of race at the utility, is also very unfortunate.

“I think the issue of race is a very unfortunate issue in this situation because it is also informed by the fact that this matter has been relegated down to a Bobby-Maroga issue - this is an issue of the board – it is an issue of governance - an issue of how state owned enterprises are managed,” says Vilakazi.

Meanwhile, the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) has sharply reacted to the build-up to the resignation of the chairperson of the Eskom Board, Godsell. The party's spokesperson on Public Enterprises, Pieter Groenewald, says the reason for Godsell's resignation will harm investor's confidence. He says it creates the impression that Eskom is run on political principles, rather than business principles. 

Groenewald says if it is true that Godsell met with President Jacob Zuma about the management crisis at Eskom, it means that Zuma did not have faith in Hogan to handle the crisis. The FF Plus says if Godsell's meeting with the president had led to his resignation, it is obvious that Zuma gave in to pressure from the Black Management Forum and the ANC Youth League.