Brown must suspend arrogant Eskom Board, and full-scale Parliamentary Inquiry must follow

23 May 2017

The DA has today publicly called on the Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown, to immediately suspend the board of Eskom following their shocking and flagrantly arrogant statements at the extraordinary sitting of the Portfolio Committee of Public Enterprises today. They simply refuse to take any responsibility for the governance failures plaguing Eskom.

Moreover, while the Minister stated that she wants to go ahead with a limited investigation into procurement at Eskom only, the DA cannot accept that with the overwhelming evidence of the complete breakdown of governance and extensive political meddling at Eskom, Brown’s investigation will scratch the surface of the problems at the entity. Procurement is but one factor of the disastrous state Eskom finds itself in.

Therefore, we reiterate our call for a full-scale Parliamentary Inquiry and we are pleased that the Acting Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, Daphne Rantho, agreed with the DA’s call.

Today, the Board stated that it stands by the affidavit submitted by Dr Ben Ngubane which claims that Molefe never resigned from his position at Eskom. This, despite Molefe himself in his resignation statement saying that “I have, in the interests of good corporate governance, decided to leave my employ at Eskom from 1 January 2017”.

This was echoed by Minister Brown in an official press statement where she unequivocally confirmed that Molefe had “resigned.” We cannot allow South Africa to be misled any longer.

The Board also today claimed to be in the best financial position they have been in for ages and generally gave themselves a big pat on the back for keeping the country's lights on. This statement is simply laughable.

They then also claimed that no wrong-doings have occurred in the organisation and claimed malicious intent by the public was fuelling the bad media around the entity.

The Board also failed to explain why they relied on the 2014 Memorandum of Incorporation when dealing with Molefe, rather than the 2016 version which the Board must have known applied.

The Eskom board is hopelessly out of touch with reality, and cannot be trusted to run the company responsible for providing our people and economy with electricity. The Board must be suspended.

In the last week or so we have seen what can only be described as one of the most bizarre series of events surrounding why the former Eskom CEO, Brian Molefe, was reinstated. In that time, Molefe has gone from resigning to taking early retirement, to being put on unpaid leave.

The performance by the Board’s representatives did absolutely nothing to instil confidence that they are willing or able to address the very real and serious issues at Eskom. They must go immediately and Parliament must use it powers to fully interrogate and recommend solutions to this mess.

Minister Brown must act now, and she must act decisively. Nothing short of a suspension of the full board, and a full-scale Parliamentary Inquiry will rescue Eskom.

Minister Brown must act, or continue to be part of the problem.

Issued by Natasha Mazzone, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 23 May 2017