EDITORIAL | The right man for the job

The government’s decision to reappoint Mteto Nyati for three years as chair of Eskom is to be commended, especially coming in the teeth of some strident criticism levelled at him and the Eskom board, especially around the utility’s impending unbundling.

His appointment represents one of the rare occasions where President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government has made a less popular public choice, but one that’s in the national interest and for the entity’s own benefit.

To start with, given the headwinds Eskom faces in a fast-changing operating environment and the pressure to become economically sustainable, a change of leadership risked disruption at a critical time for the entity.

This would have been inopportune for many reasons, not least of which is the urgency of readying Eskom for the unbundling, the need for which there is apparently no fundamental disagreement either within or outside Eskom.

It is to be hoped that the approach of appointing the leadership of public entities based on the expertise and value they bring, rather than on their political connections or pliability, will apply to the rest of the government and its entities

But as it has reached a crossroads in its history after the catastrophic load-shedding years and in the face of the requirement for the company to reinvent itself, Eskom has become contested terrain. Some of the criticism has, of course, come from actors with vested interests.

Given the pressures on the utility, the national priority should be to retain its stability and speed up its transformation to meet its pressing and enormous challenges.

It is to be hoped that the approach of appointing the leadership of public entities based on the expertise and value they bring, rather than on their political connections or pliability, will apply to the rest of the government and its entities. That is critical not only for the retention of competent leadership but also to enhance the country’s global competitiveness.