Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene has assured Parliament that Eskom is on a path towards financial sustainability, despite upheavals in the board.
Nene also told MPs yesterday that he and his team from the National Treasury were very concerned about reports on Eskom relating to the infighting and removal of board chairman Zola Tsotsi.
While Nene did not express support for any side, he said the upheaval was making them uncomfortable.
The minister and his team were briefing the standing committee on finance on the Treasury’s annual performance plan.
Chairman of the standing committee on finance, Yunus Carrim, said they were concerned about what had been going on at Eskom over the last two weeks.
This related to the Eskom chairman, Zola Tsotsi, appearing to be under siege from fellow board members.
He wanted to know if media reports were accurate, or not.
The Eskom board has revolted against Tsotsi and is pushing for his ejection over the inquiry.
In another development, Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown’s spokesman, Lionel Adendorf, said yesterday that the minister was worried about the developments in the utility.
Adendorf said while the minister had not received any formal notice from Eskom board members about reported unhappiness with Tsotsi, she could only act once a formal notice had been lodged with her.
“Our position remains unchanged that the board must exercise its responsibility and ensure that the reputation of the utility was protected,” Adendorf said.
Turning back to Nene, MPs yesterday asked him about the impact of the instability at the utility on economic growth.
Carrim said the Treasury was correct in its briefing that the electricity problem was a constraint to growth. He said the standing committee on finance was extremely troubled about the developments at Eskom over the past few days. He said they would alert the cabinet about their concerns.
Nene said they were indeed concerned about the developments at Eskom and the manner in which this had been reported. Despite this, the government was still of the firm view that Eskom would manage its business, he added.
“We are still on track on financial sustainability of Eskom. The governance issues are dealt with somewhere else,” Nene said.
His deputy Mcebisi Jonas said they viewed the situation at Eskom in a very serious light. He said the situation had to be managed properly.
At the “war room” they had identified a number of key intervention measures on the electricity crisis.
During the meeting with Business Leadership South Africa last Friday in Pretoria, they had discussed some of these measures, he said.
The priority programme for the “war room” included stabilising Eskom through strengthening managerial leadership and technical capability, Jonas added.
The second part was improving the maintenance plan of Eskom to reduce load shedding, he said.
Jonas said the third area was around the financial sustainability of Eskom.
“Broadly speaking, all of those interventions are on track and demonstrate how serious we are. On top of that is an advisory panel.
“Indeed, energy is an issue and is taken seriously in government,” he said.
Last week in Parliament, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa announced an advisory panel on energy, including ex-Eskom chairman Bobby Godsell and former Eskom executive and ex-Spoornet chief executive Dolly Mokgatle.
Ramaphosa will be back in Parliament today where he will answer more questions on Eskom.
With additional reporting by Sechaba ka'Nkosi