New Eskom board member Mteto Nyati believes empowerment rules will have to go if the electricity crisis is to be solved, according to the Sunday Times.
Nyati has served as head of MTN South Africa, Microsoft South Africa, and Altron. He started his IT career at IBM.
He heads the Eskom board’s new business operations performance committee.
‘It’s our responsibility as the board to remove any blockages or challenges in the way of the management team so they can focus on doing what they know best,’ said Nyati.
Nyati used the example of procurement, which he said is inhibited by unnecessary empowerment rules.
‘Procurement rules are not as agile as they should be, including rules which say you cannot use suppliers that are not local,’ said Nyati.
‘When the supplier of equipment is an international company … you have to use middlemen to satisfy the localisation rule.’
‘We need to remove costs from the equation. We need to make sure we are connecting directly with the people who have the knowledge that will get us out of this crisis as soon as possible,’ he said.
Solidarity chief executive Dirk Hermann has argued that ill-conceived race-based transformation at Eskom had played a significant role in the utility’s downfall.
‘Eskom was reckless in the implementation of a transformation programme, and since 2002, they offered packages to skilled Eskom workers to make space. In today’s money, approximately R1.8-billion was paid out.’
Solidarity is now trying to help Eskom acquire talent. In August 2022, it sent a list of 300 qualified engineers to help Eskom turn around. Eskom appointed 18 people.
Eskom would likely have appointed more of these skilled professionals had it not faced a battle with political leaders over inclusivity.