Independent analyst, Khaya Sithole, says striking a balance between the autonomy of the board and involvement of the government representatives in the running of Eskom is a complicated process.
Sithole was reacting to the news that the chairperson of the board of the board, Mpho Makwana, has resigned.
In a short statement, Public Enterprises Minister, Pravin Gordhan, says Makwana would step down at the end of this month.
Former CEO of MTN’s SA division and Altron, Mteto Nyati, will be appointed as interim chairperson of the board. Nyati recently announced he was stepping down as a board member of Nedbank and Telkom.
While the reasons for Makwana’s sudden departure have not been disclosed, its reported that he has been at loggerheads with Gordhan over the process to appoint a new CEO.
Meanwhile, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) says the alleged tension over the appointment of the new Eskom CEO could be behind Makwana’s resignation.
Sithole says the focus should be on fixing the crisis at the power utility.
“The crisis at Eskom requires immediate fixes and one cannot linger on dealing with the bureaucracy if an emergency needs to be addressed. When we saw the resignation yesterday, it reflected that story and also an intersection of other tension points between what exactly are the powers that ought to been and where are the lines to be drawn between what the board is able to do, what the chairman is able to do and what the minister feels he’s entitled to do.”
Sithole adds that appointments at the state owned entities will always involve politics.
Sithole elaborates in the video below:
