Intermittent power cuts in 2007, 2008, 2014, 2015 and every year since 2018 have propelled South Africans into periodic bouts of frustration and depression. And then the lights come on again, spirits lift, and pressure on the government to fix the power system subsides somewhat.
The obvious solution has been to exhort Eskom to buck the long-term trend of declining performance, to catch up on maintenance, and to emulate the so-called miracle performance of Brian Molefe, who was briefly Eskom’s CEO sometime in 2015 and 2016, and Matshela Koko, who was subsequently an acting CEO, also briefly.
Eskom’s energy availability factor is a ratio. Decreasing the denominator — the number below the line — and increasing the numerator has the effect of increasing the availability factor. There are many ways in which this could be done. The same logic applies to maintenance data, unplanned outages and plant utilisation factors.
So what is it that Molefe and Koko can offer in the current crisis: dancing E-band managers in Megawatt Park, whose numbers and salaries were hiked overnight? Molefe resigned after being exposed by the public protector’s report on state capture. And, as the realities of Koko’s management style took effect, 220 senior Eskom managers signed a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa expressing their concerns. Koko resigned soon after, ducking a disciplinary process.
While we need to continue efforts to improve Eskom’s performance, we also need more urgency in accelerating new investments in power generation. It’s intolerable that SA’s mineral resources & energy minister, in office since 2019 and with extraordinary statutory powers, thinks he is doing his job by implementing an out-of-date Integrated Resource Plan, behind time and without him causing a single new publicly procured megawatt to come onto the grid, as yet.
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