Chief executive officer of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), Busi Mavuso, says that the country has all the skills, expertise and capacity it needs to fix Eskom – the problem is that decisions about the company are being made at Luthuli House, the headquarters of the governing African National Congress (ANC).

Speaking at a Sunday Times event this past week, Mavuso said that huge delays at key power stations in South Africa – Kusile and Medupi – have been driven by crime and corruption. As a former Eskom board member, she also reflected on how difficult it was to get anything done with high levels of political interference at the company.

“We have engineers galore, we have skills galore, and we have professionals galore. The problem is that you are put in that environment as an engineer, as the board, as the CEO, with both your arms tied behind your back and you are expected to box in a boxing ring,” she was quoted saying.

“How are you going to do that? Decisions are being made at Luthuli House, that is where the problem is. Eskom knows what needs to be done, there are plans galore.”

The business leader echoed claims made by former Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter that the power utility was losing over R1 billion a month to corruption. De Ruyter made the claim several times – in the explosive interview that thrust corruption at Eskom into the spotlight earlier this year, his presentations to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) and again in his book.

Mavuso served as an Eskom board member during de Ruyter’s time as CEO, and was also privy to the controversial intelligence operation that he launched. She also confirmed previously that BLSA was one of the organisations that helped finance the operation.

According to de Ruyter, the operation gathered intelligence that pointed to high-ranking politicians and government officials being directly involved in corruption at Eskom.

The intelligence reports – which have been dismissed as worthless by some who have seen them due to having no concrete evidence, and embraced as valid intelligence by other experts who say they align with such operations – have been confirmed to now be in the hands of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).

However, despite widespread knowledge of the reports, and many official agencies, ministers, security officials, media houses and more having intimate knowledge of its contents, the politicians allegedly involved have not yet been named.

What is clear, however, is that the ANC has been fingered as the culprit.

De Ruyter alleged that the party was using Eskom as a “feeding trough” – an allegation that landed him in hot water with the party’s National Executive Committee, which has since launched legal action against him to get the comments withdrawn.

Mavuso, meanwhile, argued that while South Africa bickers over Eskom, the rest of the world is moving on and leaving the country behind. She said that investment interest is growing in Eastern Africa as the business and investment environment in South Africa deteriorates.

“Capital is like water; it always follows the path of least resistance. We are going to make it difficult for capital to land here. Capital has many addresses and unfortunately the South African address does not look very attractive,” she said.

According to Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop, foreign investors have dumped over R20.3 billion worth of their South Africa bond holdings this year so far – more than the R19.6 billion sold for the whole of 2022.

Bishop said this stands in stark contrast to the approximately R0.1 billion worth of local bonds sold in 2021 after purchasing R76.7 billion in 2019.

source:Eskom’s problem is the ANC: CEO – BusinessTech