The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on public enterprises minister Lynne Brown to come clean on the disarray at power utility, Eskom<\/p>\n
The DA noted that media reports allege that the Eskom board has rejected the proposals for an inquiry initiated by Chairman of the Board, Zola Tsotsi, in addition to reports that the board was poised to recommend his removal.<\/p>\n
This follows the suspension of Eskom\u2019s CEO, Tshediso Matona, and three other senior executives including the financial director, to allow for the Tsotsi inquiry into the operations of the utility without their interference.<\/p>\n
This leadership vacuum, which appears to be worsening, led to the utility\u2019s second credit downgrade to \u201cjunk\u201d by rating agency Standard & Poor\u2019s, while Moody\u2019s described the situation as \u201ccredit negative\u201d for Eskom, the DA said.<\/p>\n
“I will write an urgent letter to the Minister Lynne Brown, and Public Enterprises Committee chair, Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, ahead of tomorrow\u2019s meeting requesting that time be dedicated to the Minister to brief MPs on the state of utter disarray within the leadership at Eskom, said DA shadow minister of public enterprises, Natasha Mazzone.<\/p>\n
The DA called on the minister to ‘enlighten’ Committee members on the following:<\/p>\n
“At a time when Eskom is crippled, limping along and barely capable of keeping the lights on, attention should be paid to resolving the operational issues facing Eskom instead of hidden agenda\u2019s being played out publicly among board members,” Mazzone said.<\/p>\n
“For far too long, South Africans have been told to accept living with daily load shedding without being comprehensively briefed on the true state of Eskom,” the DA enterprise lead said.<\/p>\n
Eskom power forecast for the week<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n SA energy advisory panel coming \u2018soon\u2019<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n