Mantashe takes a dig at Busisiwe Mavuso after blaming ANC for Eskom’s problems

ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe has taken a dig at Eskom board member Busisiwe Mavuso after she blamed the governing party for the power utility’s problems.

Addressing delegates at the party’s Eastern Cape elective conference in East London on Saturday, Mantashe said the “right-wing” and “fascists” were on the “offensive” against the ANC.

“Anybody who wants attention must insult the ANC. We put someone in a board at Eskom and then they decide to insult the ANC, saying: ‘I have no responsibility it’s the ANC’s fault’.

“But they sit in board meetings and get paid then act like they do not have responsibility,” the ANC chair said in isiXhosa without mentioning Mavuso’s name.

The ANC in Eastern Cape is holding its ninth elective conference this weekend.

‘Fall guy’

In an incident that took place last month, Mavuso walked out of a meeting with Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).

She had a heated exchange with Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa after she said Eskom’s current board and CEO, André de Ruyter, would not be the “fall guy” for the mess at the embattled power utility. She attributed the blame to the ANC-led government.

The Eskom board member, who is also the CEO of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), was responding to a question from MPs after their oversight visit to inspect Eskom’s operations.

Mavuso has since doubled down on her views.

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Speaking to 702 last week, Mavuso said she was not deployed to the Eskom board by the ANC and believes that board members should exercise their fiduciary duties with independence.

She said if MPs wanted state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to be filled with people who would “behave” like she was told by Hlengwa, then they should say so.

“It is that thinking that is precisely problematic. When we get to these boards, we sit there as independent professionals charged with providing an independent view on the running of the utility and responsible for the overall customs and to act in the best interests of the company stakeholders, not the shareholders,” she said.

‘Cadre deployment wrecked SA’

Mavuso also penned an opinion piece, published on Wednesday, saying the reports of the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture show how cadre deployment ruined South Africa.

“It’s clear that cadre deployment needs to be entirely rethought as it promotes incompetence and is open to corruption.

“There are two streams of recommendations in Zondo’s reports: to prosecute those implicated and to set up structures and processes aimed at preventing corruption in the future. Both are equally important,” she said.

The ANC’s deployment committee minutes were attached to the first part of the state capture report, which was released in January.

READ MORE: ANC hoped to stop Zondo from making cadre minutes public

The minutes, from 2018 to 2021, appear to show how the ANC ran a parallel deployment process to fill certain positions at several government departments, agencies and the boards of SOEs.

According to the minutes from a meeting held on 22 March 2019, the committee pre-selected the appointment of judges for vacant posts in the judiciary.

The Constitutional Court (ConCourt) at the time had two vacant positions, while the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) had one.

President Cyril Ramaphosa previously defended the ANC’s policy of deployment of its members into the public service during his testimony, arguing the policy was an important part of implementing the ANC’s mandate.

The president also said the deployment committee did not keep records of its meetings from 2012 to 2017.

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Additional reporting by  Getrude Makhafola and Thapelo Lekabe