We saw Eskom challenges coming 10 years ago – former CEO

The current crisis at Eskom is out of control, according to former CEO Matshela Koko at an Eskom briefing on Wednesday morning, where energy expert Ted Bloem, as well as analyst Yamkela Spengane, were discussing the situation.

Koko disagreed with what Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan had previously articulated, that issues at Eskom could be managed. He said Eskom had a “crisis of the biggest proportions”, which could no longer be managed due to its magnitude.

He argued that government and the current board did not know what to do with the power utility anymore.

“We can’t manage this.”

He added: “We inherited a world class power system from the racist apartheid regime. The difference is it always catered for white people, a minority.” He said the system then needed to be expanded to bring more people on to the grid.

“We still have the 42,000MW we inherited from apartheid. On top of that we’ve added Medupi, Kusile, Ingula, Gourikwa, Ankerlig … all in all another 10,000MW that we’ve added.”

He said despite an installed capacity of 46,000, current sales were down 2%, meaning it was even more absurd that the parastatal could not meet peak demand at a level it had been able to manage in 2007.

He pointed out that Eskom’s loss of energy was predicted around 10 years ago, but government did not listen.

The power utility estimated that, come 2007, Eskom would run out of picking capacity. This would then be followed by a shortage of baseload capacity in 2010.

In outlining several other challenges faced by the power utility, he said Eskom did not generate enough money to pay off its debts, which left employees with questions regarding their jobs, come the following year.

A few things needed to be done according to Koko.

“Eskom employees need hope.”

He said the next would be to recognise that maintenance at the power utility was already under way.

“It is the quality of maintenance that [needs] focus.”

The public needed to recognise that Eskom had sufficient capacity and did not “need the [extra] 5,000MW that President Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned”.

On Tuesday, Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu confirmed that Gordhan had been directed to negotiate with newly appointed Eskom head Andre de Ruyter to start his term earlier than the expected January 15.

Mthembu stressed that Cabinet saw it fit to have immediate stable full-time leadership at Eskom following the announcement of unprecedented stage 6 load shedding last week, which forced Ramaphosa to cut short his Egypt trip to attend an emergency Eskom board meeting.

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