OPINION | Eskom gluttons a far cry from leaders like Mabuza

Last week’s resignation of Jabu Mabuza as Eskom’s sixth chair in 10 years, once again serves to remind the nation of the futility of trusting politicians with so much power.

Mabuza’s departure also exposes the bankruptcy of ideas and lack of vision in the ruling political elite, led by the ANC government and Cyril Ramaphosa.

The man-made disaster that is the destruction of Eskom has long been in the making. It matters not who the chair or CEO is.

The next chair and board, the current and next executive management team will come and go. They will all fail.

Eskom will continue to deteriorate even faster, taking SA down with it. Until the script changes.

In this theatre of fools, it’s not the managers that matter, it’s the director and scriptwriter at the top of government that is the problem.

This same script has been in use for almost 26 years now. Only the managers keep changing.

Those in power have always had their own agenda: to get fat at the expense of the nation.

That is what Hitachi Power Africa was created for — to siphon off the billions that have disappeared into the coffers of the ANC and their corrupt allies.

People of integrity such as Mabuza have given of their time and skills, naively thinking they could save Eskom and SA.

The good ones have always paid for this government’s greed and failure with their reputations.

With head held high, Mabuza refused to go quietly.

This is a man who built up his street cred from being a taxi driver in the east of Gauteng to the top of business as CEO of Tsogo Sun and chair of Telkom, among others.

In his resignation letter to Ramaphosa, Deputy President David Mabuza and public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, Mabuza, referring to the December plan to end load-shedding, reminds them: “We [Eskom] presented plans that I accepted as the actions we were going to take to ensure that by January 13 2020 our Unplanned Load Factor is no more than 9,500MW.

“The risks were equally highlighted.

“You accepted our plans and on the strength of those plans you announced to the nation that there would be no load-shedding until January 13.”

This is the 13th year of SA being plagued by blackouts. There is still no resolution in sight.

Mabuza and the current board may all be gone, but costly, embarrassing electricity rationing will still be with us.

Gordhan will also go and the thieves of the ruling party will get their preferred minister.

Those who brought us to this miserable point are laughing. Chief among them is former Eskom acting CEO Matshela Koko, who was there for 20 years until his greed and lust for power caught up with him.

He has been on a futile Twitter campaign to regain the job he was forced to quit in 2018.

He punts himself as an engineer who, unlike Mabuza, can end load-shedding and restore Eskom to operational glory.

He conveniently forgets load-shedding began and continued during his tenure as its senior engineer.

Koko was educated at great expense by the utility, since high school and through university.

His grasping, contemptible soul led to him being chucked out of the only place that has ever hired him.

Many like him sit miserably waiting to answer for their corruption before the nation’s judges. His turn in the dock is drawing nearer than he thinks.

Compare those of Koko’s wretched ilk to the humble taxi driver who rose with integrity, answering his country’s call to try to save Eskom from its highly educated individuals who brought the power utility to where it is ... how stark the gulf is.