Government to overhaul Eskom board

Government will make changes to Eskom’s board of directors, the department of public enterprises said on Tuesday, after electricity outages reached record levels this year.

Saddled with unreliable coal-fired power stations and a mountain of debt, Eskom has struggled to meet electricity demand for more than a decade, constraining economic growth.

“On Tuesday, the minister (Pravin Gordhan) informed the board that a review has been finalised and that the board will soon be reconstituted and restructured,” the department said in a statement.

The members of the board will be informed of the outcome of the process and the government will soon deliberate on the restructuring, it said.

Eskom did not immediately comment on the statement.

It was not clear whether Eskom’s board would be entirely replaced or whether some board members would keep their positions in the planned shake-up.

Read: The dysfunctional company that’s wrecking South Africa’s economy

It is currently headed by chairman Malegapuru Makgoba, who took up the post in January 2020 after the previous chairman resigned after another period of major power cuts.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government has been trying to reform the struggling company to make it more efficient, but progress has been slow.

This year the most electricity has been shed from the national grid to date, fuelling public frustration and leading to calls for heads to roll.  — Bhargav Acharya, (c) 2022 Reuters

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