‘Shed’ the Eskom board, minister

It’s odd that, as we head into winter, Eskom is warning about load shedding, when not so long ago it said power outages were over.

Eskom chairperson Ben Ngubane claimed that the National Treasury – which is investigating a number of questionable Eskom coal supply deals, including with Gupta family-owned mines – will not sign off on new contracts. So, there might not be enough coal in the Eskom stockpile to see us through winter.

Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe denied that the power parastatal was blackmailing Treasury but it does seem to us that Eskom is saying: “Look the other way and allow us to continue doing what we have been doing… or we cut your power.”

The warnings followed heated parliamentary debate about the Eskom mess and featured Ngubane and his political boss, Public State Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown, ducking and diving about the reappointment of Brian Molefe as Eskom CEO.

Not long ago, Molefe was hailed by Ngubane and Brown as the man who saved us from load shedding.

Yesterday, though, his light finally went out when Brown summoned up the courage to rescind his reappointment.

That’s the kind of Eskom load shedding we like to see.

Now, minister, pull the plug on Ngubane and the board, too.

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