Independent commission of inquiry must look into Eskom’s near collapse, privatisation
Not too long ago, South Africa was crippled by endless hours of power cuts.
Load shedding became the new normal as the economy and livelihoods were shredded at the alter of incompetence.
All it took to turn things around was for public anger to reached beyond gatvol.
The game-changer was that South Africa faced elections. It was obvious that either the governing party, the ANC, was going to be kicked out of power because of the public wrath over its failure to halt the power crisis or it needed to swiftly get the lights back on. Which it did and we are enjoying.
However, South Africans can neither be complacent nor take this moment of lights being on as thinking that the power situation is in the clear.
For several years, the ANC has been toying with the idea of dismantling and breaking up the power utility company to sell its parts to the private sector.
Eskom had to go on its knees in order to get public buy-in. Indeed, the work to dismantle Eskom kicked off as the power utility’s lights dimmed. Privatisation was mooted. The big cheques were cut. Even the likes of investment company BlackRock and banks showed an appetite for acquiring a chunk of Eskom’s generation plants.
Well, the privatisation plan didn't go as planned.
Elections came timeously and the right leadership fought to save Eskom at the right time. They led Eskom out of the dark into producing electricity, once more scuppering privatisation plans and foiling those who thought they could buy it for cheap.
The same tactics were exposed in the now-foiled SAA/Takatso deal – that of prized assets being sold cheaply to vested interests who stood to make a fortune.
In the case of SAA, the assets are once more valued at billions, while in the potential sale, were up for a ridiculous fire sale. South Africans, in this case, also fought to stop the rot as they awaited answers.
Eskom went through a harsh winter. What is remarkable is that Eskom’s energy availability factor (EAF) is performing at more than 70%. Minister of Energy and Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa confirmed that Eskom performance was challenging views that old power stations must be closed.
The high-performing plants are the oldest in Eskom’s fleet. All are doing well over 70% EAF at the same time. Yes, having so much electricity in the day and during the night looks normal but this was not the case several years ago. The constant load shedding broke South Africans’ spirits.
Eskom staff, led by the most amazing team of black knight engineers, rallied the troops and got to work to turn around the company from its lacklustre performance. Within months of taking charge, head of generation Bheki Nxumalo skilfully got Eskom’s broken units recovered, one by one.
Eskom has turned the corner and now uses less or no open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs). This is remarkable, given the fact that in the past years, Eskom was burning diesel to the loony tunes in the same period.
The over budget spent on diesel in the past few years reaches billions of rand in just burning diesel to keep the lights on.
Now that power plants are working and Eskom’s performance is beyond expectations, the power utility, for the time being, no longer relies on diesel to keep the lights on. It has also contributed to a R9 billion reduction in OCGT diesel expenditure.
Eskom is pushing out generation capacity levels of 35 000MW. This is the highest level achieved since 2018 when the load shedding phenomenon was infrequent. We, as electricity consumers, are scaling four months without load shedding and power cuts. It seems abnormal even though having constant uninterrupted power supply is supposed to be normal. We are open-mouthed, gaping in awe over the astonishing performances by Eskom.
What I find surprising is that no one is speaking about consequence management regarding Eskom’s previous management. Yet there are direct visible signs and evidence of derelict of duty activities within Eskom’s previous boards, executives and outside players that led to the near collapse of Eskom and after billions and billions of rand wasted on diesel and other emergency procurement exercises that bore no fruits.
The story of Eskom is by far the biggest state capture and corruption in South Africa’s state-owned enterprise history.
By now, South Africans should be realising that Eskom’s near collapse was not accidental. There is an elephant in the room. But everyone in Eskom, the levers and corridors of power and in Parliament are going on as if the problem of Eskom's near collapse occurred naturally. Thousands of questions remain unanswered.
Who was in charge? What went wrong? Why did things get so bad when Eskom had a perfectly run and operated machinery for all those years?
We need an independent commission of inquiry to look into who was milking this cash cow and getting lucrative diesel deals, among other shenanigans. The inquiry should not be controlled by politicians or those in executive offices.
As the people of South Africa, we want to know: How come from late 2017, load shedding returned and after 2019, worsened and lasted till the eve of the 2024 elections?
How come a complex system such as Eskom was allowed to deteriorate to such extreme levels of collapse to a point where it threatened the collapse of the South African economy?
Yet there are no questions asked by Government of National Unity, Parliament or the executive ministry in charge of Eskom. That silence is dangerous. Eskom is not out of the state capture woods yet.
Crown Prince Adil Nchabeleng is president of Transform RSA and an independent energy expert.
* The views in this column are independent of Business Report and Independent Media.
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