President's intervention in Maroga dismissal draws parallels with Mbeki's protection of inept officials

According to a report this morning, President Zuma appears to have actively interfered in the decision not to dismiss Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga (see here). The report indicates that:

• The Eskom board resolved to fire Maroga on Thursday last week;
• The president then apparently sent the minister of public enterprises to Eskom on Friday to stop the dismissal;
• The Eskom board has been fighting with government over the decision since then, but Maroga has been kept on in his position.

President Zuma has absolutely no business telling the Eskom board that they cannot fire Jacob Maroga. Mr. Maroga's tenure has been marred by all number of problems, and it is clear that the Eskom board has lost faith in him. For there to be political interference at this stage is simply untenable.

In recent months, the DA has highlighted several reasons why Mr. Maroga needs to be dismissed from his position. Of particular importance in this regard is:

• Maroga's decision to fire international energy consultant, Susan Olsen, who warned in a confidential memo to Maroga that Eskom's coal procurement practices were placing electricity supplies in jeopardy. Maroga appeared to do little to act on Olsen's advice, and ultimately South Africa endured a period of "load shedding" which cost the country approximately R2 billion per day (see here).

• The details provided in a series of classified memos and reports, leaked to the public by the DA, which show how Eskom's lack of experience and failure to understand coal markets played a significant role in their later supply problems, and how Eskom's "haemorrhaging [of] talented staff" - in Olsen's words - had left the power utility lacking "leadership, experience, knowledge and direction". This week, DA released a report by Eskom's technical corporate audit division, which outlined the serious shortages in senior staff at the utility and supported Olson's findings. Again, Maroga appeared to pay no attention to these warnings.
• How, under Maroga's tenure, no action has been taken to address serious problems with the Medupi power plant, raised in a confidential memo released publicly by the DA. Of particular concern here was that, under the current plan, the power plaint may drain parts of the Waterberg, including Hartebeestpoort dam, and may inflict untold and irreversible environmental damage. Again, Mr. Maroga has failed to respond adequately to this matter.

At the very least, a judicial inquiry needs to be established to investigate why Mr. Maroga failed to take action on these memos. But the Zuma administration has taken the exact opposite course, and appears intent on doing everything possible to keep him on. For a senior cabinet minister to apparently instruct the Eskom board to make a decision contrary to the one that they wanted to make is quite concerning - indeed, it is this kind of political interference that gets parastatals into such problems to begin with. In addition to the fact that this kind of influence is completely unwarranted, we also need to ask why the Zuma administration would go to such lengths to keep Maroga. Surely this undermines the Zuma administration's very public posturing around the ‘unavoidability' of Eskom electricity hikes, since clearly the ANC government is going out of its way to protect the very people who are responsible for dismal mismanagement of such a crucial utility.

The intervention by the president is highly dubious and suggests that personal and political considerations are informing the Zuma administration's actions. The DA will submit parliamentary questions in order to ascertain on what grounds this apparent intervention took place. Clearly, there is more than meets the eye; one can only speculate as to the leverage which Maroga enjoys if his inevitable dismissal is of such high importance as to get the attention of the President.

Statement issued by Cobus Schmidt, MP, Democratic Alliance deputy shadow minister of energy, November 4 2009

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