Now Eskom keeps everyone in the dark

Business is fed up with government's refusal to provide reasons for suspension of top Eskom executives.

Business is supposed to be in partnership with the government over how to fix Eskom - but the leader of Business Unity South Africa, the biggest business organisation in the country, says the suspension of Eskom's CEO and three top executives last week was as much of a surprise to them as to anyone else.

There is "a lot of anger and angst" in the business community, says Busa CEO Khanyisile Kweyama.

"They're demanding that people at the highest level in government come to us, meet with us and tell us what is going on."

Busa sits on a task team with senior officials from the government and Eskom that meets every Monday. The team met the day before Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown announced that Eskom's top leadership echelon was being suspended, but Kweyama says there was no hint at the meeting about what was coming.

"It took us completely by surprise. We had no advance warning."

Kweyama says it raises questions about how seriously the government takes the concept of a "partnership with business" if there is no communication about decisions that could have an enormous impact on Eskom and the energy crisis.

"We thought that as members of the task team, we were privy to, and contributing to, decisions about Eskom," she says. "But now we're seriously concerned about the level of partnership in this matter."

The work of the task team feeds into the cabinet "war room" headed by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. The task team was regarded as a sign that, at last, the government was ready to use the expertise offered by the private sector to fix Eskom.

"This drastic move puts the credibility of what we've been doing in the task team at stake," says Kweyama.

By late last week Busa had still not had any direct communication from Eskom, the "war room" or Brown to explain the reasons for the suspensions or anything else. They did not know anything more than what they had read in the newspapers.

Kweyama says that even if the government felt it could not trust business enough to make it "privy to its decision-making" about Eskom, what she finds unacceptable is that business was not given any indication whatsoever that such a momentous decision was being contemplated.

"I am very concerned that we didn't get a heads-up," she says.

The only possible excuse for this would be if the decision was taken by the Eskom board without the involvement of the government, as Brown claims.

So does Kweyama believe this? She laughs. "You have to believe [it], otherwise you cast doubt on the government. The minister said it was a board decision. We don't know what decisions were taken around the boardroom table or what the input was, but we are worried."

Under normal circumstances, Eskom's board should be allowed to do what it has to do, she says.

"But in any company where management is not meeting shareholder expectations, the shareholder will intervene. And I think we all accept that Eskom is not in a natural state of operation.

"If they were doing their job and there was not so much angst among the citizens and business, then they could very well be left alone to do it. But the fact that there is a war room, the fact that business has been asked to participate in a special task team, makes it clear that it is not business as usual."

She says the explanations Busa has heard so far have not satisfied it.

The issues Brown says will be investigated had been flagged before the appointment of CEO Tshediso Matona and the other executives who have been suspended - so Busa is still in the dark as to the real reasons for the suspensions.

"The suspension of the CEO does make one wonder about the issues the minister says are going to be investigated because they all pre-date his appointment six months ago," she says.

Kweyama, who was executive director of Anglo American South Africa before being appointed head of Busa, says normal business practice would be for a new CEO to be given 100 days to acquaint himself with the situation and present his strategy to the board.

If this happened and the board approved Matona's strategy, then his suspension three months later makes no sense. If he did not present it with a strategy and it did not ask for one, then it raises serious questions about the board's competence from the outset.

Brown has said the investigation will take three months - Kweyama says this is too vague.

"Three months is very vague to us because the terms of reference are not clearly defined.

"We don't know this gentleman who will be going in there now [as acting CEO]. We don't know anything about him and we have no idea what his terms of reference are," she says, adding that time is "critical" and three months is three months too long.

"We wouldn't even have wanted a three-day delay to see whatever plan is now on the table. Three months creates additional uncertainty. It creates additional angst about ability. And if the investigation is going over the same issues that have been investigated before, what are we hoping to see differently?

"We want to hear more; the government needs to take us into its confidence."

A lack of communication from the government is "one of the big things we have raised as business" - but no one seems to be listening.

"We have been saying: 'Tell us more, be transparent with us. We need to know what is going on. We need to have that knowledge, it is important for our planning. Communicate with us so that we are not taken by surprise.'"

She says Busa has been getting extremely angry feedback from its members, which include the heaviest hitters in business, saying that things cannot continue like this.

"There have been expressions of anger from business leadership. Members are saying they cannot just go on like this. There is a lot of anger and angst."

Business is always "wary to prejudge", she says, but things have reached a point where "silence is definitely no longer an option".