POLITICAL NEWS - Jabu Mabuza announced Eskom’s September 2017 interim results with self-assurance and style.
Looking natty in a pink jacket, pale blue shirt and brown Fedora, he raised confidence in Eskom by a couple of notches.
As he spoke of rooting out financial mismanagement, malfeasance and corruption, it was easy to be pulled into a feeling of optimism that everything will be okay.
However, he is not the first highly-experienced businessman to take on Eskom.
Bobby Godsell came out of retirement in 2008 to become chairman.
He was CEO of AngloGold Ashanti from 1998 to 2007.
Godsell resigned in November 2009, and reading between the lines, the reason was government interference.
At the time of Godsell’s resignation, Adam Habib, then deputy vice-chancellor of research at the University of Johannesburg, was quoted in the Mail&Guardian as saying: “It appears as though the authority of the board is being undermined. The corporate governance at Eskom seems to have been rocked very badly.”
How right he was.
Eskom’s 31 March 2009 annual report announced that it was going to embark on a massive five-year R385 billion capital expenditure programme.
Looking further forward, it was planning to build 40 000MW of new generation capacity by 2025.
It proudly proclaimed that this was the largest capital project in SA, and would have “large spin-offs through the awarding of contracts, investment by suppliers and purchasing of goods and services sourced from SA”.
It also affirmed that “it continues to support procurement with BEE and BWO suppliers”.
Unfortunately, the promise of burning all this money on ambitious projects laid the organisation open to capture, price fixing and collusion.
The darling of SA, with access to international finance and debt guaranteed by government, the power to structure capex, procurement, finance, insurance, or any contract, through any intermediary of its choice. What could go wrong?
Perhaps when strings are pulled at the behest of its capturer?
