Africa-Press – South-Africa. Eskom board member Busisiwe Mavuso was asked to leave a meeting with Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) after saying the board and CEO André de Ruyter would not be the “fall guy” for the ANC-led government.
Scopa visited various Eskom facilities over the past two days as part of its oversight duties. Scopa, led by chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa, met with de Ruyter, Eskom’s management and board members on Friday.
During the meeting, Mavuso, who is also the CEO of Business Leadership SA, remarked that the ANC-led government created the mess at Eskom.
“… What we will not accept and what we will not agree to, in spite of all the challenges we are facing as an organisation and all the efforts that have been put in place, is to have this board and André [de Ruyter] as the fall guy for the mess that this organisation is currently experiencing,” Mavuso said.
“… Because the reality of the matter is that this is not our mess. We have been brought in to clean it up. But we are not going to be the fall guy for the R300-and-whatever billion of Medupi and Kusile, that have still not being completed.”
She added that the board and management were doing their best to finalise Medupi and Kusile. “… As André [de Ruyter] has said, we have committed that we will avail ourselves to be held accountable … to ensure Kusile is finished by 2023.
“But everything else … honestly, we … we cannot be the fall guy for this ANC-led government,” Mavuso emphasised.
Hlengwa then berated Mavuso for engaging in “theatrics” following “decent” interactions Scopa had with Eskom board chairperson Prof Malegapuru Makgoba over the past two days.
“You will not come mid-stream of our oversight of Eskom, which began in earnest in 2019 with these kind of theatrics,” Hlengwa said.
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In response, Mavuso said it wasn’t theatrics but facts.
In turn, ANC MP Bheki Hadebe chipped in to ask her what the facts were. Mavusa replied: “That this is the mess of the ANC-led government.”
Hlengwa then said that Mavuso would have to be held in contempt of Parliament. He noted that De Ruyter had been at pains to talk Scopa through various issues without engaging in theatrics. Hlengwa then suggested that Mavuso was performing for cameras.
“… That is what cameras do. Either behave yourself or excuse yourself from this meeting,” he said.
Mavuso then promptly excused herself from the meeting.
But Hlengwa had the final word when he said Scopa would be making “fundamental recommendations” about Mavuso and her “very unprofessional conduct.”
“This is politics from the gutter as far as I’m concerned,” he added.
In a tweet, Hlengwa, who is an MP for the Inkatha Freedom Party, countered that the “ANC mess is not in dispute”, but that Mavuso as an Eskom board member “must account for the institution the ANC has deployed her to”.
He added that in 2019 Scopa made 23 recommendations regarding Medupi and Kusile power stations, and to date the board and executives only achieved success with nine of the recommendations.
The country has experienced Stage 4 load shedding this week following unplanned breakdowns at various power plants. During earlier briefings in the week, De Ruyter stressed that delayed decisions by government in the past to acquire generation capacity have contributed to the load shedding challenges.
Eskom will suspend load shedding at 22:00 on Friday.
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