While public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan warns about the imminent demise of a bankrupt Eskom, the power utility is still not taking seriously the need to fix its liquidity problems, says Ronald Chauke, energy portfolio manager for the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa)."If leadership were serious about stopping the financial haemorrhaging it could minimise the impact of its debt by terminating irregular and illegal contracts," he says.This would be a quick save of about R15bn, but Eskom is still paying those contracts, he says."It seems like they've decided to rather just let the Treasury and higher electricity tariffs bail them out."Chauke, who was head of department at the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) and director for public finance for energy at the National Treasury before being appointed to Outa, said if he were the regulator he wouldn't consider Eskom's tariff application unless it said how much money it would be recouping from the cancellation of corrupt contracts."I'd tell them to go back to the drawing board and revise their application based on good corporate governance, austerity measures and a clean turnaround strategy."As a condition of any government bailout, Eskom must put in place austerity measures including systems to cut at least 10,000 non-core staff, he says."If not, then the National Treasury should make it clear they'll get no more than a bare minimum."Whatever the Treasury does give Eskom, it needs to come with strict conditions and timelines.He says Gordhan has not been playing the required oversight role."If in the minister's team there were technical people with the right skills and experience, and the right moral courage to do the right thing for the country, they would be supporting the Eskom board in making bold decisions so that the board knows the ministry is with them."By ordering the board to agree to a 7.5% wage increase last year after it had decided on no increase, and vetoing staff retrenchments, Gordhan did the opposite."Things are not synchronised between the department and the board," says Chauke. This is why Gordhan is constantly reacting to crises after they've occurred rather than working with the board to forestall them.Apart from signalling a lack of confidence in the board he appointed last year, his announcement that external engineering and auditing experts will be brought in is a belated response to a long-evident lack of skills.Chauke doubts these "consultants" will add much except to Eskom's already unsustainable R30bn annual wage bill."They're going to come and tell Eskom what they already know. And they're not going to come cheap."His own suggestion is that retired engineers with institutional knowledge of Eskom's power plants should be recalled.He says Gordhan's "sudden ministerial interventions" would not be necessary if there was more synergy between his officials and the board."We have a fragmented approach to resolve a problem that needs a holistic and integrated approach."The presidency is also to blame. Unless it provides the right leadership and proper direction, "I don't see us coming out of this"."At the moment it seems to be about just trying to survive from one day to the next. We're not resolving the problem."Line ministries need to be better skilled and capacitated to deal with the complexities Eskom poses, he says."They must improve their expertise and bring in people with the right skills and moral courage to confront the problems and provide solutions."It is very important that the presidency is advised by the right people, and that you eliminate vested interests."He says the restructuring of Eskom announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa has to happen at a policy level. It should be led by the department of energy, which is "missing in action" and hopelessly inadequate to the task."The department of energy should tell us how the electricity supply industry is going to be reformed, what are the timelines, the targets, the key role players, the support mechanisms they're putting in place to make it happen."The president's statement tells us very little and the department of energy is saying nothing."You can't move until there is a policy direction."According to the president, the separated entities will be under Eskom, meaning that nothing in effect will change."They're under leaders like group executive generation, group executive transmission . so it's still basically the same."Proper restructuring means taking transmission out of Eskom and establishing an independent system and market operator so that generators serve the transmission network on an equal basis, he says."Rather than be a conflicted Eskom enterprise it should be an independent, national state-owned enterprise. Not Eskom-owned but government-owned."It will be a long, complicated process, which should be managed outside Eskom, ideally by the department of energy.But as the department is clearly not up to the task, it should be undertaken by the National Planning Commission (NPC) empowered by the presidency to act as a "super authority" over the line departments.The NPC came up with what was supposed to be SA's blueprint, the National Development Plan, which explains how energy should lead the country to future prosperity, economic growth and development.Since then, it has been "ball watching" while departments involved in the energy sector have done little or nothing."Everything is fragmented, there is no project leader or project champion."That's where the problem is now. To sort this out you need a project champion with the authority and power to fire, to repackage and redesign and do whatever is necessary to make it a success."The NPC needs to be empowered to play this role.It needs to summon all relevant departments and spell out what is required of them technically and strategically, assign roles, responsibilities and accountabilities."If necessary, they must establish a multi-disciplinary war room again as a matter of urgency," says Chauke, "so that we fix the problem rather than just carry on ball watching."..