- South Africa’s Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, has announced that incumbent Eskom chairman, Mpho Makwana, has resigned and will step down at the next AGM scheduled set to take place at the end of the month.
- Makwana has appointed a year ago and will be replaced by Mteto Nyati, who becomes the 10th board chair appointed in the last sixteen years at Eskom.
“I am grateful for the opportunity afforded me by the government of the Republic of South Africa to serve a second term as chairperson of the board of directors of Eskom SOC Limited,” said Makwana, who first served as the board chair from 2009 to 2010. “I wish Eskom and its people success and thank its committed stewards for their unstinting efforts to revive the utility.”
Related news: Eskom chair, Makwana, did not know his church owed Eskom R2 million in outstanding electricity bills
“Our efforts to stabilise Eskom and restructure it into three subsidiaries – generation, transmission, and distribution – remain on track. As a government, we are committed to ensuring that Eskom has the right skills, talent and experience to support our pursuit of a more secure energy future for South Africans,” said Gordhan.
Nyati has a long history in executive roles in some of the country’s biggest firms, having been the CEO of ICT firm Altron, a position he held from 2017 to 2022. Prior to that, he was the CEO of MTN’s South African subsidiary.
Mteto Nyati is the new chairman of Eskom. Image credit: Altron
In 2022 Nyati acquired a 40% stake in business and consulting firm Business Systems Group (BSG) in which he was subsequently appointed executive chair, a position he still occupies. According to their website, BSG has supported a leading global oil and gas provider to compliance of its South African operations with local and international data privacy regulations. They do not state the name of the oil and gas provider. Read more
Ongoing leadership and governance crisis at Eskom
Eskom has also had 11 CEOs appointed in the last fourteen years. Since Andre de Ruyter departure in March this year, Eskom has not appointed a new CEO. De Ruyter exposed widespread corruption, mismanagement, fraud, sabotage and looting of the state-owned energy utility where high ranking ANC leaders were involved. He also said that the utility cannot be turned around. Read more
As of May this year, the country’s National Treasury reported that Eskom has unsustainable debt of R439 billion and it is growing. It is effectively paying off debt with debt which is placing a tremendous strain of the country’s fragile fiscus which is on the brink of default. Read more
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
