Eskom has asked four senior executives, including CEO, Tshediso Matona, to step aside pending an independent inquiry into the challenges facing the country's power utility.
This announcement was made on Thursday morning by Eskom chairperson, Zola Tsotsi.
"The Board in its quest to address the current challenges faced by Eskom has deemed it prudent to seek an independent view of the status of, among other things, the poor performance of generation plants, delays in bringing the new generation plant on stream, high cost of primary energy, cash flow challenges, these are but some of the issues that have occupied the minds of the board," said Tsotsi.
"To ensure that this process is transparent and importantly uninhibited to the extent possible, the board has also resolved that four of its senior executives including the Chief Executive, Tshediso Matona, should step aside for the duration of this inquiry. The executive who have been asked to step aside while the inquiry is underway are Ms Tsholofelo Molefe, who is the Finance Director, Mr Dan Morakane who is the Group Capital Executive and Mr Matshela Koko, who is the Commercial and Technology Executives," Tsotsi added.
He said one of Eskom's current non-executive board members, Zethembe Khoza, will assume of the position of interim chief executive and he will be supported by several senior executives who will be acting in the roles of those executives who had been asked to step aside.
"All of these senior executives have been with the organisation a long time and we are confident that they will maintain business continuity during this period," he added.
"This period, the Board would like to last no more than three months. The Board has resolved that an independent inquiry be conducted by external parties who will be selected within the next week. They will be given unfettered rights of access to all information deemed necessary for this probe to be successful," Tsotsi said.
He said the Eskom Board had emphasised that "this process is a critical step towards ensuring that the situation facing Eskom improves as expeditiously as possible."
"To that end we would like to ensure our cusomers and our employees that this was done in the best interest of all of our stakeholders and we hope to come out of this with a better grasp of all of the challenges facing the business and most importantly with solutions," he concluded.
