Business Unity SA on Eskom leadership and load shedding
10 November 2021
BUSA has long lamented the dire economic impact of load shedding. The country has experienced sometimes prolonged bouts of load shedding for over 13 years, despite additional capacity coming online.
BUSA recognises that the fundamental issue lies in years of irreversible damage inflicted on the utility over more than a decade of state capture and corruption which resulted in critically undermaintained plant. Despite the deep maintenance programme, the trend shows an increasingly worsening energy availability factor with more and more faults identified and more unplanned outages because of the aging and poorly maintained plant.
BUSA notes the recent calls for the resignation or termination of the Eskom Executive leadership and Board. BUSA rejects these calls and stands with the Eskom leadership in these difficult times. It does not help to exacerbate the ongoing operational crisis by creating a leadership and governance crisis at Eskom. We are of the view this leadership has taken the tough decisions, shown remarkable openness and transparency and, critically, developed a progressive future-looking plan that will see the diversification and decarbonisation of the electricity supply system in South Africa.
Eskom’s leadership has been clear, given the state and age of the plant, maintenance alone will not address the real and worsening supply crisis – new capacity must urgently be added to the grid.