CAPE TOWN - Under-fire Eskom board member Busisiwe Mavuso may have had a valid point in telling Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) MPs that the ANC’s failures contributed to the crisis that is Eskom today, but it does not stop there.
She should have also conceded to the fact that the current board and executive assumed the responsibility of fixing Eskom when accepting their appointments, and they have dismally failed to do so.
With the same vigour, Mavuso should have also found the courage to explain to South Africans that as a board and executive, the problems at Eskom are too much for them, and as such they are tendering their resignation letters.
We have been hit by rolling blackouts, costing the ailing economy billions of rand, and all indications are that it could get worse with winter.
To now play the blame game when they are called to account can be interpreted as looking for an easy way out.
The fact that she puts the blame on the ANC as an organisation, and not individuals within the party that led to the near collapse of Eskom, does very little to help her and the Eskom board.
The less said about the drama that unfolded between herself and Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa, with Mavuso storming out of the meeting, the better.
But it is noteworthy that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s name is absent whenever issues at Eskom come up.
Instead, powerful voices are comfortable blaming the ANC (rightly so), but not even mentioning Ramaphosa’s failures in his responsibility to turn the power utility around when then president Jacob Zuma appointed him to the so-called Eskom “war room”.
Ramaphosa himself acts like he only woke up in 2018 when he became the country’s president, and has failed to take responsibility for the mess that is Eskom today.
Ramaphosa and the current Eskom board and executive may believe otherwise, but it is clear that none of them have proven to have the will to fix Eskom.
Instead they are preoccupied with selling it to the highest bidder, because the government does not have the appetite to tackle the problems confronting Eskom head-on.
They are comfortable making it someone else’s responsibility.
Cape Town