Embattled power utility Eskom has announced Andre de Ruyter as the new Group Chief Executive Officer. He will commence duties as GCEO at Eskom on 15 January 2020.
In a statement, Eskom said De Ruyter will work with the board, management and government to spearhead the re-organization of the power utility.
Eskom is planning the separation of its business into three entities: generation, transmission and distribution, as well as the creation of Eskom Holdings.
#Dpe_MediaStatement
Appointment of the Eskom Group Chief Executive @DPE_ZA pic.twitter.com/RSW8dZZctC— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) November 18, 2019
Last week, Cosatu said transformation should not be completely abandoned in the move to reform state-owned enterprises. Good governance and stable leadership at State-Owned Enterprises dominated discussions at the Alliance Political Council last week.
The partners have agreed on the need to fast-track the turn-around of Eskom, starting with the appointment of a permanent GCEO.
The labour federation confirmed that the alliance reached an agreement on the candidate for a permanent Eskom GCEO. The search for someone to urgently steer the restructuring of Eskom has been dragging on for months.
During the discussions, Cosatu’s Sizwe Pamla raised the issue of transformation in attempts to fix SOEs.
“Everytime where we have a problem with black executives, maybe either involved in nefarious activities or just collapsing the institutions, there is this instinct now to say we bring in white people, issues of transformation are still very central for us they are still important while our priority should be bringing in experienced and efficient people. We think we have enough of those people in the black community but in this instance, we agreed that Eskom is too big an institution for us to actually be bogged down and waste a lot of time and being indecisive so we have agreed on the candidate.”
