Eskom chair on new CEO appointment

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SIMON BROWN: I’m chatting with Mteto Nyati, chair of Eskom. Mteto, appreciate the time today. The new Eskom CEO being announced – Dan Marokane. I suppose the first question is, when does he get into the hot seat and start the position?

MTETO NYATI: We believe he’ll probably start before the end of March. The reason why we’re saying it like this is because it’s largely depends on the handover where he is right now.

It’s not like we’ve got somebody who was not working.

We’ve somebody who was equally doing an important job at Tongaat Hulett. As many of you know, that is an organisation that is going through a turnaround of its own.

SIMON BROWN: I take your point. He wasn’t someone sitting at home waiting for a call, as you say. He had a giant job already. Absolutely. This is a big ask, and Eskom has been without a CEO since the end of February. Of course, you’ve had a stand-in CEO. How is the organisation? It doesn’t grind to a halt just because there’s no CEO. Is it still able to operate efficiently in the interim?

MTETO NYATI: It was able to, I must say, and I want to recognise Calib Cassim, who stepped up from the position of chief financial officer and took the responsibility of being acting CEO over this period.

When we announced on Friday to the managers of Eskom about [the new appointment] many of them were commenting as we were doing the announcement or chatting and dropping messages.

And one of the things that they were excited [about and] where they were giving feedback around, is how well Calib showed up when he was asked. So that’s a common thing.

The other thing that came out strongly is how much love there is within Eskom. So both those things were quite encouraging to see – that we asked somebody to step in and act, and that person did not let us down. The person who is coming is somebody that is highly respected by the people of Eskom.

SIMON BROWN: That is important, because my next question is going to be [that] he undoubtedly has the support of the board and the shareholder, who is government, otherwise he wouldn’t have been appointed. But it was going to be about the staff, because a CEO needs the staff supporting him. And you’re saying he’s got that support from the staff at the utility.

MTETO NYATI: I cannot generalise, but I’m just looking at the comments coming from the senior leaders on Friday  … because it’s them who were either commenting vocally or dropping messages – from that you could pick up how much respect he has.

You are right. If you are a CEO, you cannot do anything all by yourself. You have to do it [as a team]. And that is one of the qualities we looked at when we were looking at the new CEO – the ability to connect with people, the ability to inspire people, the ability to also hold people accountable, deliver bad news if you have to, and hold people accountable – all of that.

That’s what we looked at, and then [Marokane] ticked those boxes.

SIMON BROWN: He’s had experience at Eskom before; he worked there 2010 to 2015 and left under dubious circumstances which came up at the Zondo Commission. But this has given an easier intro to the top seat as CEO, as he’s had experience. It was many years ago, but he still got some experience around a state entity, and more particularly from Eskom.

MTETO NYATI: It helped – the fact that he had worked in Eskom. [What] also helped [is] the fact that he decided to do something that was not popular during that time when he was here, to stand up against corruption that time.

Many people were just going along with whatever they were being asked [to do] from above. He chose not to do that, and that certainly communicates something to us, that this is certainly the kind of leader that we need here.

But most importantly, though, is also the experience that he has demonstrated outside of Eskom when he stepped up again at the beginning of this year, when the company that he is working for was going through a very difficult time. It [could] have been closed; he stepped up and, together with the team there, they are in a position to [be able] say that the company continues to exist, and you can see that there’s a light at the end of that tunnel.

SIMON BROWN: You mentioned he stood up to corruption back in 2015 with his ousting from Eskom. Does he have allegations? That was one of the issues with [former Eskom CEO] André de Ruyter, and I don’t want to go back to that story; that’s an old story. But does he have strong board and shareholder support to deal with existing corruption within the utility, within Eskom?

MTETO NYATI: [Chuckling] We need a person who is going to be dealing decisively with load shedding, decisively with corruption, and decisively with the restructuring of Eskom. That’s the person that we needed. It’s not just one; we need all of those. Those are equally important.

These are important things for this board, so when were looking for a candidate, that candidate had to tick all of those boxes. The fact that he stood up, the fact that he did something and that it cost [him] his career within Eskom by virtue of taking a stand, says a lot about his character.

That’s what we need because people set the tone from the top. The tone from the top of the organisation comes from the leader, and that he has demonstrated a number of times. And that’s what you need.

SIMON BROWN: A hundred percent. You mentioned the restructuring, because of course a big part of the sort of short-term plans within Eskom is the ultimately breaking of Eskom into three separate entities.

MTETO NYATI: Absolutely. When we talk about our priorities for him, it is to make sure that we recover generation as quickly as possible. But [with] that, the restructuring – because linked with that you are opening up Eskom to be able to facilitate bringing independent power producers into the system [because of] the cost of electricity to the consumer. So that’s one thing.

But at the same time we are also bringing additional capacity. So it is urgent. It’s very, very important that you execute on that … There will be many more developments that you’ll be picking up over the few weeks around this space, where we are making key decisions around this, which is really great.

But you need a leader, and when he comes in he has to run with this.

SIMON BROWN: You mentioned ‘recovering generation’. We are seeing the energy availability factor improving a little, but still down on previous years. Your sense of the load shedding as we head into 2024? Can South African citizens expect improvements – [fewer] stages, perhaps less load shedding altogether?

MTETO NYATI: Yes. One of the things that as this board we did was that we worked with management and in March this year management presented what we call within Eskom [the] ‘Generation Recovery Plan’. It’s a 24-month plan from March of this year. And we look at where we want to be by a specific time in terms of the energy availability factor.

And the fixing of Kusile [Power Station] was part and parcel of that: Kusile [Unit] 1, Kusile 2, and Kusile 3. And the fixing of Medupi [Power Station] and bringing that on stream, and making sure that we fix all of the challenges that we are faced with in Koeberg [Nuclear Power Station]. And when we go into the next outage of Koeberg [Unit] 2, let’s take the lessons from Koeberg 1 and make sure that all of that is part of that generation recovery plan.

We want him to own this but, again, we are not waiting for him. Things are happening, things are improving.

One of the reasons why the country was up in arms when we got to Stage 6 load shedding about three weeks ago, is the fact that it’s been a long time since they have experienced that. Why? Because things are improving – and indeed things are improving around situations. You’ll have a setback. Once you figure that out, bring those lessons as you move things forward.

So from where I’m sitting I can see that things are improving. It’s going to be even better when you have a leader that is going to be owning the process.

SIMON BROWN: I take your point on that – the new CEO coming in late March. We’ll leave it there. Eskom chair Mteto Nyati, I appreciate the time.