Former acting CEO Koko backs Shivambu’s ‘rational and sensible’ plan to save Eskom

An opinion piece on what the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) proposes as a five-point plan to save struggling energy utility Eskom by the party’s deputy president Floyd Shivambu has earned the backing of former acting Eskom CEO Matshela Koko.

According to Shivambu, the EFF’s plan is as follows:

• “Eskom should standardise all coal prices and only pay the prices determined by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).
• “Eskom should fundamentally review all power purchase agreements (PPAs) with independent power producers (IPPs) with the aim of exiting these nonsensical contracts.
• “The government should assemble a highly skilled panel of engineers from all over the world to investigate the delays in the completion of the two major power stations, Kusile and Medupi.
• “The government should issue requests for proposals from private developers of nuclear power stations, which should necessarily use a build, operate and transfer model to illustrate how they will use their own money to construct nuclear stations, operate them for a period not exceeding 25 years, transfer skills and thereafter hand over to the state.
• “The government should massively invest in renewable energy projects.”

The full column can be on IOL.

Koko took to Twitter following the column to express his approval. “I agree that the proposed recovery plan by the [EFF] to [save Eskom] is rational and sensible,” he tweeted.

“It actually makes a good read,” he added.

Koko has made it clear that he does not support what is currently going on at his former employer, particularly President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan’s efforts to save Eskom.

READ MORE: Matshela Koko thinks load shedding is a diversion

At a media briefing in December, 2018, Gordhan requested managers who were no longer employed at the energy utility to refrain from commenting on developments at the energy provider, in what was almost certainly a reference to Koko, who has been outspoken in his criticism of Eskom and government’s plans to save it on social media since leaving the state-owned-enterprise.

Koko has even expressed the view – laced with more than a whiff of conspiracy – that load shedding is a “diversion” from what he sees as Eskom’s “real problem” – IPPs (independent power providers), a theory that puts him squarely in the same camp as the EFF on this issue.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman.) 

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