De Ruyter expected to start earlier to tackle Eskom crisis

Newly appointed Eskom head Andre de Ruyter has been requested to start his service at Eskom earlier than expected to attend to the number of issues at Eskom.

While briefing the media on the outcomes of Cabinet’s meeting on December 13, Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu confirmed Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has been directed to negotiate with De Ruyter that he start service earlier than expected since he was expected to start on January 15, 2020.

Mthembu said: “Together with his team, he will be able to deal with the concerning issues at Eskom, including governance, financial management and improvement of operations at Eskom.”

Mthembu stressed that Cabinet saw it fit to have immediate stable full-time leadership at Eskom.

“We would like the new CEO to start as soon as possible.”

Last week President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived at Eskom’s Megawatt Park in Sandton to attend to the current power crisis following Eskom’s decision to move to stage 6 load shedding on Monday.

He told reporters that although there were a number of factors involved in the power cuts, from heavy rains to the age of the stations, at least 2,000MW of power was lost due to sabotage.

“What has also come out as a great concern is that there has been a measure of sabotage, sabotage that has lead to the loss during this period of 2,000MW, where someone in the Eskom system disconnected one of the instruments that finally lead to one of the boilers tripping, and us losing as much as 2,000MW.”

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