Vuyiswa Tulelo, the secretary general of the ANC Youth League, in an interview with the Mail & Guardian last week, said that the league would target the mining sector for nationalisation first.
Asked which sectors would be targeted thereafter, she replied: ‘Later we will look at other sectors, including state-owned enterprises, especially rail and energy.”
Presumably Eskom is on the youth league’s list.
The only problem is, er, it is already state-owned, as is Spoornet. The utility now approximates a train wreck with a litany of challenges as it struggles to keep the lights on.
Its biggest problem, though by far, is the fact that it has been failed dismally by its owner, the state, which wanted a new dispensation for energy, but failed to set up the regulatory framework to make this possible.
Government meanwhile ran Eskom as a kind of pet project to attract energy intensive investors at give-away electricity prices while ignoring Eskom’s warnings that we were running out of juice.
But it is also clear that management has to assume some responsibility, particularly in the area of coal procurement, which is a mess. Chief executive Jacob Maroga is accused of responding inadequately to, or covering up, a report by consultant Susan Olsen on the sad state of coal procurement at the parastatal. She gave the report, which included possible remedial action, to Maroga just six months before the lights went out in January 2008, in large part as a result of coal-supply problems.
The board subsequently lost confidence in Maroga who was seen as taking too long to develop and implement a turnaround strategy, and as the M&G went to print was trying to push him out.
The job of fixing Eskom is now a massive undertaking which most sensible people would decline, but it has to be done. There is a role for politicians in making sure that a suitable person takes over the running of Eskom, not least in the laying down of a clear mandate to clean up the mess and the provision of cover for the bucket brigade that must do the dirty work.
So what we have seen is the opposite. The board’s decision to get rid of Maroga has been quickly politicised, the Black Management Forum (BMF) and the youth league charging that the decision was racially motivated.
Eskom sources counter, however, that the fact that Maroga lost up to six of his top black staff members, suggest that race was not a factor.
Eskom is an unhappy story, one which is causing a significant dent in our economic aspirations.
Unfortunately it is not the only one as government meddling and poor appointments in communications, airlines, transport, defence and telecommunications are both costing money and economic growth. Clear rules are set out in legislation governing the roles of the president, the minister of public enterprises, the board, and the management of public entities. They should be followed. Moreover the era of crude deployment must end, and efficiency replace it. If the right person is not put in charge at Eskom, and if Barbara Hogan, the board and the executive are not allowed to do their jobs, the lights will go out at Luthuli House and BMF headquarters just as surely as they do in Bryanston and Camps Bay.