Roman Crookes has been in charge of South Africa's most important project, the Medupi and Kusile power stations, since its inception in 2008. Now, suddenly, he is gone, and we don't know why. Eskom says he resigned to pursue other opportunities. He confirmed to Business Times that he did resign and was not fired, but said he wasn't allowed to say any more than this.Why would a professional engineer who is still only 43 decide out of the blue to walk away from the opportunity of a lifetime? No answer.Has he signed a confidentiality clause? No answer.Eskom won't answer this question either, or any of the questions we were invited to send them.Such as why, the day after it announced, last week, that he'd be leaving at the end of January, CEO Brian Molefe went on radio to say he would be leaving with immediate effect. The inference is that Molefe told him to pack his bags and go, which would be a strange response if this were an entirely voluntary resignation.story_article_left1If this was just a normal career move, asks energy expert Chris Yelland, wouldn't they at least want to keep him on a retainer?"Here's a guy who has been in charge of the country's most important project since inception in 2008. He has been intimately involved every step of the way."There must be hundreds of issues, contractor issues, scope change issues, pricing issues, where his inside knowledge could prove to be very important."Eskom says his replacement, Phillip Dukashe, is well qualified to take over, but this is not the issue, says Yelland."The reality is that when you've been the main man for 10 years you've got to have some information in your head that they might find useful."When someone in charge of such a critical and formidably challenging project decides to leave, one would expect some kind of notice period.At that level even a 30-day notice period would be "remarkably short", says Yelland."He's the kind of person you'd want on a three-month notice period."If this were a normal career move, one might have expected some indication of regret or gratitude or at least a handover period.Instead, they've said in effect that they don't need his experience or knowledge, and that he won't be missed at all."Eskom plans to either meet or beat the deadlines set for Medupi," announced Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe, blithely ignoring the disastrous catalogue of missed deadlines that have dogged the project from the word go and seen its costs balloon from an initial R30-billion to R105-billion (according to Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown last year), to R300-billion by the time it is finished, say independent analysts.It is precisely these missed deadlines that would have justified Molefe in firing Crookes, if, indeed, that is what he did, and beg the question, why only now?As the project director, Crookes was responsible for drawing up the construction programme and announcing any changes to it. Even if the problems were not all of his making, some were undoubtedly the result of poor project management.When the CEO or chairman of Eskom had to tell the minister there had been yet another one-year delay, Crookes should have been in the firing line.All the pressure from the Eskom executive committee, the board, the minister and the cabinet would ultimately have landed on his shoulders. Even if he was not forced to quit, it would have been perfectly understandable if he decided he'd had enough.story_article_right2But he never sounded like he'd had enough. In an interview last year he sounded confident that he'd reached the top of what had been a painfully sharp learning curve and was now readier than ever to guide the project to completion.But nine months later, in November last year, Molefe announced another one-year delay in both Medupi and Kusile, and this may well have sealed Crookes's fate.As project director he was the man on site. He didn't sign the contracts or choose the contractors or lay the ground rules for labour. The executive committee and the board did all that and made a terrible hash of it.They learnt, to the country's considerable cost, that you don't embark on a mammoth project like Medupi and Kusile without what is known as a site-wide labour agreement to harmonise working conditions, rates of pay and hours of work between 200 different contractors on site.The absence of such an agreement is a recipe for labour unrest. But this was only very belatedly introduced by Eskom's then financial director Paul O'Flaherty when he was dispatched to the site to sort out the labour disaster.Even after the agreement was put in place, labour disruptions continued and would have given Crookes many a major headache. According to Eskom, 19 months of working days have been lost because of labour disputes. Crookes's attempts, such as they were, to resolve them may or may not have contributed to his departure. It is interesting that National Union of Metalworkers boss Irvin Jim responded to the news of Crookes's departure by warning his successor Dukashe not to mess with workers' rights.International contractors as well as labour have been blamed for much of the disaster but Eskom is the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) main contractor, and so its executive committee and board cannot disown responsibility as they have consistently tried to do.Now Crookes seems to have been made the scapegoat. This may seem unfair but it's part of the job description. A sufficiently experienced project director would have known this. The question is, was he sufficiently experienced?Crookes started his career at Eskom 16 years ago as a mechanical engineering bursar at Kendal power station. In response to a request for a detailed CV, Eskom said only that he "has worked in the fields of engineering, maintenance and project management".But as far as we know he'd never managed the construction of a power station before, never mind a project as enormous, sophisticated and complex as Medupi and Kusile.story_article_left3"If you're going to appoint a project director for something like this you'd better choose someone who has done it around the world," says Yelland."No amount of theoretical knowledge can prepare you for all the complexities and things that happen on site. It is all about experience."At the age of 33, when he was made project director, he would have been too young to have anywhere near sufficient experience to handle what is regarded as one of the most complex projects in the power sector in the world today.Appointing Crookes may have been one of the biggest blunders the Eskom board and executive committee made in this whole sorry saga. Nevertheless, if anyone should carry the can for the delays, it is him.Says Yelland: "If the project director can't be held accountable for making things happen, who can? When you're the project director and your project is running seven years late, then you've got to go, that's just the fact of the matter. You've got to go."..