Firing De Ruyter now like booting the pilot while plane is crashing

There are mixed feelings about whether the head of Eskom, André de Ruyter, should be booted after South Africans spent the past weekend enduring stage 6 load shedding.

With many South Africans calling for the Eskom boss’ head, political analyst Piet Croucamp said people who wanted De Ruyter out didn’t understand how complicated the situation was at Eskom.

“There is nothing to say that hasn’t been said. The power stations are old and outdated; the staff were not skilled enough because it’s a difficult turnaround process with people who had a vested interest in corruption and the bad management of the utility,” he said.

Also Read: Eskom lacks project management skills to execute on maintenance – expert

Croucamp said those who wanted to boot out De Ruyter didn’t know what was going on.

Out of De Ruyter’s hands now

Energy expert Clyde Mallinson concurred, saying whether De Ruyter should stay or go was irrelevant.

“The country is so far past who is leading this now, it doesn’t actually matter because the system has taken control of itself. We are looking for a scapegoat or cause of the problem and people are always invasive about how this problem came about.”

Mallinson said the new risk navigation programme was initiated almost three years ago and stated the emergency procurement strategy should meet the specifications given by Eskom.

“If it’s true, it means Eskom didn’t actually know what they needed and they are system operators. The process where they tried to procure 2 000MW of capacity between 5am and 9pm was not the way to make procurement. Either the system operation didn’t understand how the system worked or they were under instruction it would favour or allow gas to be competitive.”

Mallinson said our system operator was running the control system in crisis mode.

“The last thing we need to do is to get rid of the pilot while the plane is crashing. We need that chap (“Sully” Sullenberger) who crash-landed the plane on the Hudson River (off Manhattan in New York in 2009, rescuing all 155 people on board).”

Ordinary people are gatvol

Centurion resident Debbie Fourie said she was gatvol with all the load shedding.

“It affects my personal and work life. We don’t have money to buy a generator. When the power goes out, we sit in the dark and heat,” she said.

Fourie said they lost some income because their phones and laptops ran flat during the long load shedding stages.

“It’s so frustrating. When you go home, you sit in traffic for hours because the traffic lights are affected by the load shedding,” she said.

Also Read: Load shedding and KZN floods blamed for SA’s economy shrinking

Fourie said they were fortunate to have gas to cook at home.

“I know De Ruyter is trying his best and I think he should stay. He is the only one who tried to make the best of a bad situation.

“De Ruyter can only do so much to save the sinking ship, but it will take time and money to fix. Removing him will cause more damage and inconvenience.”

Fourie said she prayed that Eskom doesn’t implement a total blackout.

“It will cause big problems and financial losses. People are already suffering; we can’t take any more,” she said.

Another resident, Stuart Schwartz, said not only did he suffer personal damages due to the power cuts but so did tenants renting from him.

“Everything is affected. My fridge broke and one of my tenants on the property also lost a fridge,” he said.

Schwartz agreed, however, that De Ruyter wasn’t the problem.

“They will replace him with another foot soldier or someone as useless as him. Our whole country is in s***. We are turning into a second Zimbabwe and we cannot stop it.”

Also Read: Eskom ‘concern’ prompts Ramaphosa to cut international trip short

Schwartz said it was the second time load shedding had gone from stage 2 to stage 6 when President Cyril Ramaphosa was out of the country.

“Eskom has many excuses, then the coal is wet, but the point is Eskom didn’t plan and expand like it should have years ago and cannot support all the suburbs and townships on the broken grid.”