Eskom lacks project management skills to execute on maintenance – expert

With rolling blackouts and breakdowns leading to 100 days of load shedding as of yesterday for the year, it seems Eskom’s maintenance and repairs plan is falling apart and the expert help recommended by unions is still being “considered”.

While Eskom planned to improve on maintenance in the coming summer months, energy economy specialist Lungile Mashele said maintenance had been the biggest issue at Eskom.

According to Mashele, Eskom needed a lot of additional capacity to do proper maintenance and was currently battling on this front.

“They were able to take units off for a couple of hours or a weekend which was not going to help them. Those plants did not need that sort of maintenance,” she said.

‘Reliability maintenance’ needed

Eskom’s plants needed “reliability maintenance”. “This is when you plan two years in advance, procure and put in place a project plan. Eskom lacks project management skills to execute on maintenance,” she said.

Eskom group chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said on Monday Eskom had suffered a “disastrous” week as 42 generating units tripped, which resulted in the current blackouts. He said there were likely to be power cuts during summer, too.

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“We are ramping up planned maintenance as we head into summer. We also find that our maintenance is not yet yielding the required results. Units return to work and then break down. This is due to lack of skills.”

Mashele said the issue of skills was often touted but in reality the problem was not the skills shortage.

“Sasol is running a similar aged fleet but they are not having the issues Eskom is currently facing,” she said.

Mashele said one of the key challenges Eskom faced was procurement and government had promised to look at the Public Finance Management Act and how they carried out procurement and address it.

“This meant Eskom had to go for the cheapest quote first instead of going for original equipment manufacturers (OEM). You will probably find there is something which needs to be fixed and instead of being allowed to procure directly from specific OEMs, they then have to procure in the market,” she said.

“These were the key things the ministerial electricity crises committee should have addressed.”

Early in July, Solidarity trade union offered to help recruit technical experts to “save” Eskom and while Eskom acknowledged the request; it seemed it did not take in any of the experts provided.

Solidarity’s public sector deputy secretary-general Helgard Cronjé said they had supplied a list of available people with special skills.

On 24 August, Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter thanked Solidarity chief executive Dr Dirk Hermann for a list of former Eskom employees “who are willing and available to assist Eskom with closing the critical skills gap”.

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Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said yesterday Eskom was considering if, how and when to use those on the list. Cronje said the union had given Eskom 300 names “which included a variety of skills such as masters and doctorate degrees as well people with technical and artisan backgrounds”.

He said he understood the process in providing a company like Eskom with a list of names could take time, but felt the matter was not prioritised.

“You have to negotiate with individuals and find ways to work with them, but it seems like they have not finalised the process yet,” he said.

“It was also a matter which did not acquire the priorities it deserved.”

Mashele added that Eskom might not have a problem with accepting people from Solidarity or other sources, but the crucial thing was to determine who they were bringing on board.

“Following talks of bringing them on board to manage or guide, they might meet resistance with there being an engineering culture where people do not come from outside and tell people what to do internally,” she said.

-Additional reporting by Faizel Patel