Cape Town - Eskom board chairperson Jabu Mabuza has resigned, the presidency announced on Friday.
"In his resignation letter, Mabuza apologised for Eskom's inability to meet the commitment it made to the president, the deputy president and the relevant ministers at a meeting on 11 December 2019 to avoid load shedding over this period," the presidency's statement said.
Mabuza was appointed Eskom chairman in January 2018. He has failed to turn around the fortunes of the troubled power utility despite numerous bailouts from National Treasury.
According to the presidency, Mabuza's resignation has paved the way for government to announce plans for "a re-configured Eskom board with the appropriate mix of electricity industry, engineering and corporate governance experience".
Mabuza's resignation comes a day after Deputy President David Mabuza told ANC supporters in the Northern Cape that the Eskom board, along with Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, misled President Cyril Ramaphosa about the extent of the crisis at the state power utility when they told him that load shedding would be suspended until after January 13.
The deputy president made the remarks as South Africans once again suffer daily power outages while Eskom battles to increase its generating capacity and bring out-of-service units back on the grid.
Legal think tank and lobby group Insika Economic Movement has called for government to investigation the matter further.
On Friday, tripartite alliance partner Cosatu called for Gordhan to be axed for what they termed his failure to fix ailing state-owned entities (SOEs).