As he faced down sabotage, a week of savage attacks by the Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and a grid in freefall on his own, Eskom's CEO André de Ruyter quit. He has informed board chairperson Mpho Makwana.
Too shredded by the Phala Phala scandal to defend the Eskom CEO, President Cyril Ramaphosa has gone to ground. State Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan was not nominated to the ANC NEC and is politically weakened, so he said nothing, too, as Mantashe trashed Eskom and De Ruyter.
Mantashe is Ramaphosa's key to a second term as ANC President because he is a streetfighter with steel-tipped elbows. Mantashe accused De Ruyter of sabotage as Stage 6 load-shedding gripped the country. South Africa has had almost 200 days of rolling blackouts this year, and Eskom has not communicated a daily status update for days. In November, he called De Ruyter a "policeman" who did not have what it took to run the utility.
De Ruyter resigned after a year ended with units dropping like snowflakes from a Christmas Tree in a warming climate. De Ruyter has had his best year and his worst. Energy and energy transmission reform have finally got into...
