Eskom’s current management team is effective, capable: President Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa says the current Eskom management team is effective and capable.

In a special address to the nation on Monday night, the President said the management of Eskom is working hard to turn the utility around and reverse years of decay and mismanagement.

There’s been growing calls for government to fire Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter for failure to keep the lights on.

However, Ramaphosa attributed the current electricity challenges on poor performance of Eskom’s old fleet of power stations: “The performance of some of Eskom’s power stations have been further worsened by extensive theft, fraud and sabotage. After years of state capture and mismanagement, a capable and effective management team is working hard to turn the utility around and reverse years of decay.”

Ramaphosa added: “However, as things stand, we are still faced with an electricity shortage of up to 6 000 MW. In recent weeks, a combination of factors resulted in 18 000 MW of generation capacity being lost and forced Eskom to implement stage 6 load shedding.”