Without a significant change in the government's approach to the management of its single most important public utility, it is a journey that may never be done.
We commend minister Barbara Hogan's overdue action to bolster the board after President Jacob Zuma's apparently ambiguous intervention caused chairman Bobby Godsell to conclude that he had been abandoned. We support the suggestion that Godsell should be wooed back to try again.
But the reputation of Africa's biggest power utility and, by implication, of all our state-owned enterprises, and South African corporate governance itself, has been severely damaged. Hogan noted that the crisis coincided with an economic road show to Europe by Pravin Gordhan, the finance minister. Business ambassadors abroad said that, after this and the government's ham-handed intervention that nearly torpedoed the Vodacom listing in May, investors were hearing alarm bells. The country's reputation was too strong to be shattered by these events, but assumptions are being tested, so this is a good time to reinforce the government's commitment to the provisions of the King III report on corporate governance.
Race, politics and cronyism all hampered a quick resolution of the crisis caused by the Eskom board's loss of confidence in the CEO. Few now continue to claim that Maroga was a victim of a racist conspiracy, but ANC leaders from President Zuma down allowed the poison to flow for far too long before they repudiated those in their party who had made the claim.
The flaws in the ANC's acknowledged policy of deploying party loyalists to commanding positions in the economy are now clear to see - not only in Eskom, but in Transnet, Armscor and SAA, too. If it does nothing else, the executive vacuum in so many state corporations should prove that the government should shift the focus of its appointments from party loyalty to executive excellence.
Also evident now is the fact that Zuma has been willing to intervene directly in business to protect the interests of cronies who put him in power or who could help to keep him there. Hogan skimmed over his role in her statement to parliament, acknowledging only that there had been one. It was a costly mistake to get involved in both cases.
After briefly believing we might be spared the storm, we know now that South Africa has been battered as much as most by the global recession. The government's priority as sole shareholder of the many parastatals upon which our economy depends must be to stabilise their governance and to enhance their performance so that every green shoot of the recovery can be nurtured until growth returns to levels that will require more from each of them than any has given before.
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