Outgoing Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter, who has overseen South Africa’s longest period of load shedding in more than a decade since the electricity crisis, has left the troubled parastatal with immediate effect. He is expected to give notice by the end of March after announcing his resignation late last year.
De Ruyter, Eskom’s 11th CEO in more than a decade, is leaving the organization by “mutual agreement” following a special board meeting held today (February 22), the company said in a statement.
“The board further decided that Mr. de Ruyter would not be required to serve the balance
notice period but he will be released from his post immediately,” he said. The appointment of the chief executive of the acting group is being finalized with the Department of Public Enterprises headed by Pravin Gordhan.
De Ruyter’s resignation comes on the back of an explosive television interview on Tuesday evening with broadcaster, ENCA, in which he said available evidence showed that the ruling ANC saw Eskom as a “feeding trough.”
He admitted that he had failed to prevent load shedding in the country, but highlighted the corruption that has been in the government and the government around Eskom. When asked by the broadcaster about his concerns about corruption, he said he had expressed his concerns to an unnamed senior government minister about efforts to reduce government spending on the $8.5 billion fund set aside to finance the country’s transition from fossil fuels. Just Transition.
“The response was basically, ‘you know, you have to be pragmatic – to achieve the greater good, you have to let some people eat a little.’ So yes, I think (corruption) has been established,” he said.
South Africa is currently experiencing a load shedding crisis with the country experiencing its 115th consecutive day of power outages. Currently the country is in Stage 6 load-shedding – meaning between 8-12 hours of power cuts.
Credit rating agencies in recent weeks have warned of the impact of prolonged power outages on ratings for the country. Fitch Ratings has forecast economic growth will average 1.1% this year.