Maroga exit mostly welcomed

Cape Town - A general welcome for the departure of Jacob Maroga as chief executive of Eskom has come from the opposition benches, with the Democratic Alliance leading the way and the Young Communist League on the other hand complaining the loudest.

The Young Communists say they do not accept his "orchestrated" resignation, and instead call for the dismissal of the Eskom chairperson, Bobby Godsell "as his views are well crystallised in the sentiments of the Democratic Alliance. He continues to serve the interests of white monopoly capital that have managed to entrench themselves through previous cheaper supply of electricity by the apartheid-led government and now want to slam the doors of Eskom to the black majority."

The Black Management Forum (BMF) also objected, saying state-owned enterprises were being turned into "slaughterhouses" for black professionals.

The BMF said in a statement following the announcement of Maroga's resignation that this "appalling trend" showed a total disregard for transformation of the socio-economic landscape.

Maroga had experienced a fate similar to the SABC's Dali Mpofu and Transnet heir-apparent Siyabonga Gama.

"We reiterate... that pushing experienced Africans to leave these positions is aimed at destroying institutional memory and experiences of Africans in the economy so that they remain at the bottom of the economic pyramid," it said.

But the Independent Democrats Lance Greyling reckons that the resignation is to be welcomed - if it represents the start of a comprehensive process to overhaul the energy governance system in South Africa.

"The ID supports the principle that the CEO of a public enterprise must take ultimate responsibility for the running of that enterprise," Greyling said.

"Given the persistence of problems at Eskom, the ID believes that Jacob Maroga has done the honourable thing by resigning as CEO. We cannot, however, fall into the trap of believing that such a resignation will simply solve the systemic problems that Eskom faces. The reality is that our energy governance in South Africa has been woeful and has had negative impacts on our economy and the lives of our people."

'No golden handshake'

The parliamentary leader of the Freedom Front Plus Pieter Groenewald declared: "His resignation will bring more certainty and investors will be more interested in South Africa now. Workers, middle and senior managers at Eskom will also be more motivated to do their work. We already in September of this year asked in Parliament for Maroga's resignation.

"Maroga should definitely not be given a golden handshake and least of all a performance bonus. He does not deserve one of the two, as he has proven himself to be incompetent. We also call on government to not redeploy Maroga in any other public enterprise as chief executive officer."

The IFP spokesperson Mario Oriani-Ambrosini said he did not want to personalise the issue, but instead suggested that Eskom should not be allowed to deal with its problems alone.

"Eskom's problems have become the country's problems; and all of us have been forced to pay up to solve them, without having had a say in the matter," he said.

"For this reason, this crisis makes it even more urgent for Parliament to accept my demand that hearings be held in Parliament, to receive both public and expert inputs to determine whether there is an alternative way to fund Eskom's huge expansion programme, other than by the means of an aggressive tax in the form of a 508 percent tariff increase."

- I-Net Bridge