Transmission entity searches beyond the borders for board members

Eskom chair Mteto Nyati says the search for inaugural board members for the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) went local as well as global in a bid to find vital energy transmission skills.

“There are supposed to be 15 members of the board. I think we are probably going to go, initially, with about eight because we would like to look beyond South Africa because it’s very important to get skills that are transmission-related and we would like to possibly look overseas for those kinds of skills,” he said on Wednesday.

Nyati told Business Times on Wednesday that Eskom’s board provided support to the department of public enterprises (DPE) in fielding candidates to fill the board seats for the NTCSA, which is expected to go operational next year.

“All of the interviews of the board members were done by us on behalf of DPE and what we have then done now that we have completed it is we have given all of those names for the DPE to, of course, approve and also make a call around who should be the chair,” he said.

Eskom interim CEO Calib Cassim told the portfolio committee on public enterprises that Eskom was engaging with the department of mineral resources and energy to formalise the NTCSA’s status as a buyer of power from independent power producers.

“We’ve received now the three licences from the regulator [Nersa], so at least from that perspective, that item is now closed. We’re still busy with the lender consent and engaging with them and then, importantly, through the shareholder, we await the appointment of the NTCSA board, and then we would also need to get approval in terms of NTCSA being designated the buyer of power by the [department of mineral resources and energy],” he said.

He said Eskom was also working to operationalise transmission by the end of the current financial year, with distribution and generation separation in later stages.

The briefing to parliament also comes as Eskom released an annual report and financial statement showing Eskom’s steepest loss (R23.9bn), most frequent load-shedding (280 days), and worst energy availability factor (56%) of any financial year to date.

The briefing also took place on the same morning that load-shedding escalated from stage 2 to 4 due to insufficient emergency reserves and generation capacity as well as four units not returning to service as planned.

Nyati told the committee that the power utility was confident that a permanent group CEO would be appointed by the end of the year as the board has given public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan three “appointable candidates” for the CEO position.

“One of the priorities that we have indicated is to make sure there is leadership stability. It starts, in our view, with having a permanent CEO, but many positions are acting. But the starting point is to have a permanent CEO who we will hold accountable to make the necessary appointments in the organisation,” he said.

Nyati said the Eskom board, which has been in place for a year, has gained a good view of what is required, the scale of challenges, and the leadership needed. He said the three candidates whose names were given to Gordhan fit that bill.

“It’s very important that we have someone who understands, deeply, the company, the industry itself, someone that I would say is largely technical from an engineering standpoint. None of this can ever be done by one individual. You must work with people and work as part of a team,” he said.

Nyati said the utility’s generation recovery plan which was finalised in March must resolve these challenges. He said Eskom has relied on open-cycle gas turbines to supplement generation capacity, which can only be reduced by improving the reliability and availability of the coal fleet.

Eskom told parliament that the NTCSA did not achieve operationalisation or start trading this year as planned due to several external dependencies. These included:

• its licences from Nersa, which have been awarded but not issued;
• lender consent, which is still expected in November; and
• the conclusion of governance requirements, including the appointment of independent directors for NTCSA by the DPE.

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