Hadebe: Poor leadership at the root of Eskom crisis

Hadebe was speaking at the announcement of Eskom’s interim financial results at Megawatt Park on Tuesday morning.

“We are here, where we are, because of poor leadership across the whole spectrum of Eskom. Decisions that had to be taken were not taken.”

Hadebe painted a bleak picture of the financial challenges facing Eskom. 

ALSO READ: Eskom set to shed more executives

Eskom is in debt to the tune of almost R500 billion.

Hadebe says a lack of corporate governance played a significant role in the cash crisis facing the power utility. . 

“We are always on the news for the wrong reasons and the liquidity issue the chairman has highlighted is the outcome of that.

"We reached a stage where the funders felt that they could no longer engage with Eskom.” 

The power utility confirmed that it had met with several investors over funding, but that investors are wary to inject money into Eskom before it deals with the issue of corruption. 

“Of course a board meeting took place and these issues were discussed and the decisions that were made was that we needed to deal with this as speedily as possible”, says Hadebe

ALSO READ: Eskom to advertise CEO, CFO posts

Eskom has been under the spotlight since it emerged as a central player in the State of Capture report released by former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela.  

Acting head of Group Capital, Prish Govender, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Anoj Singh resigned from the power utility, shortly after government told Eskom to get ride of officials implicated in allegations of corruption.