Amidst growing dissatisfaction and rolling blackouts, Public Enterprise Minister Pravin Gordhan has announced plans to “restructure and reconstitute” the Board of the embattled public power utility, Eskom. Since the last reshuffle of the Board in 2018, 7 of the 13 non-executive directors have resigned from the Board of Eskom, with the remaining 8 members being on recorded as pleading with government to re-fill these vacancies.
These calls have seemingly gone unheeded until now, when it is clear that President Cyril Ramaphosa is currently facing mounting pressure to end the record power outages that are crippling the economy. The latest round of loadshedding began on 6 September 2022 and, despite numerous undertakings by Eskom to resolve the issue, South Africans have endured severe Stage 6 loadshedding at times, with Stage 4 currently in effect “indefinitely”.
The announcement comes just one day before Eskom Chief Executive Officer, Andre de Ruyter, warned that current modelling predicted stage 15 loadshedding unless South Africa relaxes air quality standards and aggressively invests in renewable energy. In March of this year, the Johannesburg Pretoria High Court handed down judgment on the now infamously named “Deadly Air” case, which ordered Minister Barbara Creecy to draft regulations to implement and enforce the Highveld Priority Area Air Quality Management Plan within the next 12 months, with the aim to clean the air to meet the required National Standards. De Ruyter explained that Eskom’s existing coal power stations simply do not, and cannot, meet the minimum emission standards, leaving the power utility with a choice; spend R300 billion to retrofit existing power station with emission cleaning equipment or decommission them. With retrofitting being a completely unaffordable option, de Ruyter explained that Eskom would be forced, under current emission standards, to decommission 42% of its existing power stations immediately and decommission 79% by 2025. Creecy has applied for leave to appeal the Deadly Air judgment, which application remains pending.
Opposition parties, including the Economic Freedom Fighters, are now calling on the government to fire Eskom Chief Executive Officer Andre de Ruyter for failing to stem the outages, and to replace the Board with those individuals they believe will best be able to resolve the current power crisis.
Ramaphosa is understood to be in discussions with lawmakers and relevant stakeholders regarding the steps needed to restructure of the Board and resolve the ongoing blackouts.
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