Johannesburg — WHEN the dust of the ugly Eskom spat that unfolded in the past week has settled, SA will still have to come to terms with the fact that the elephant in the form of a troubled Eskom is still in the room.

In the midst of the storm over the future of Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga, the reality is that we still have a power supplier that faces problems on many fronts. The danger with sideshows such as the one seen recently is that the players entrusted with huge national responsibilities can easily take their eyes off the ball. In Eskom's case, the priority should always be to keep the lights on.

It is public knowledge that Maroga and Eskom chairman Bobby Godsell did not see eye to eye on several issues, but CEOs and chairmen are not supposed to have cosy relationships anyway.

It has come into the public domain now that Godsell and Maroga presented very different proposals at the heated board meeting two weeks ago. Both had offered to resign if their respective proposals were shot down. When neither was prepared to budge, they were asked to leave the meeting and board member Lars Josefsson chaired. When the board chose Godsell's proposal, it held Maroga to his offer of resignation. And, as they say, the rest is history.

It seems matters came to a head when Godsell said Maroga and his executive were overburdened and suggested that Maroga get a chief operating officer "to whom he can effectively delegate responsibility for seeing that issues such as these on this list are effectively and timeously dealt with".

Maroga had other ideas. He wanted to restructure the executive management committee. He felt the current executive structure - made up of himself, chief officer for generation Brian Dames, chief officer for customer network business Erica Johnson, MD for corporate services Steve Lennon, acting chief finance officer Izak du Plessis and acting MD for human resources Elsie Pule - was no longer relevant.

Maroga has proposed a flatter structure to allow him to get closer to the operations, a move likely to have implications for the current executive management committee members. How does he get closer to operations without rendering a layer of management redundant?

If he is to steer a steady ship, Maroga must deal with the departure of key personnel. Given its huge responsibility in light of the build programme, Eskom has taken its time to fill key vacant posts. It has on several occasions singled out primary energy as one of its biggest problems, yet the post of MD for primary energy has been vacant since July last year. In addition, finding finance for the huge build programme is another priority, but former finance director Bongani Nqwababa's post has been vacant since he left in December last year. Former deputy CE Paul O'Flaherty is likely to take over the post.

In the past few years, Eskom has lost senior managers and some are yet to be replaced. These include Ehud Matya (former generation MD), Duncan Mbonyana (former corporate division MD), Mpho Letlabe (former human resources MD) and Fani Zulu (spokesman).

The conflict between Maroga and the board did not start at the last board meeting, but had been simmering for a while. In previous meetings, Godsell had raised the board's concerns about Eskom management's ability to deal with the problems facing the utility.

He felt management was not dealing decisively with important issues. Hence the 41 matters that he termed "unfinished business".

These included the review of the shareholder compact, the development of a national energy strategy, a long-term financial sustainability strategy, long-term coal contracts, the development of a free basic electricity strategy and the review of Eskom's support to the pebble bed modular reactor project.

Of significance to Eskom's financial performance is a note from a meeting of February 27 when the board had asked that Eskom deal with embedded derivatives. At that meeting Maroga said the matter could not be dealt with within a month. These derivatives contributed to Eskom's record loss in the year to March 31.

More worrying is that the board should have taken a decision to delay Kusile, the new coal-fired power station in Emalahleni, Mpumalanga. Pending the board decision, the utility has decided not to place new contracts for new power stations. Without doubt this is going to affect the power station's schedule.

And lest we forget, there is the small matter of security of supply, especially during the next year's World Cup. The tournament is likely to put strain on Eskom and could force use of the more expensive peaking power stations, a factor that will burn the utility's balance sheet.