Eskom CEO Maroga’s resignation welcomed

By Ofentse Mokae
05 November 2009

Following much debate on Eskom’s failure and debacle around its head Jacob Maroga, labour organisations and opposition parties welcomed his resignation.

It is believed an internal memo, distributed within Eskom this morning, states that Maroga’s resignation is with immediate effect.

This is despite yesterday’s strong defence by public enterprises minister Barbara Hogan for Maroga against an outpouring of bile against him from the opposition benches in the National Assembly.

Answering questions in the house, Hogan told MPs that it was unfair to blame one individual for the troubles at Eskom.

"Please bear in mind that the issues at Eskom arise out of a long history of decisions that were made around Eskom, that the CEO is not the only person who has to take the responsibility for those decisions," Hogan said.

In a statement Solidarity union said they welcomed the resignation of Eskom’s chief executive officer.

The trade union says it believes urgent action is now needed to tackle the serious weakening and shortage of competent management in general at the electricity supplier.

“The time has come for renewal in Eskom’s management – and that is exactly why Maroga’s resignation is welcomed.

Maroga simply could not manage the electricity supplier efficiently and even failed to appoint competent executive management to salvage the crisis situation at Eskom,” explained Solidarity spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans.

Kleynhans says they call on the Eskom board to act in the interest of all South Africans and restructure management.

The Democratic Alliance’s Cobus Schmidt says that Maroga’s welcome resignation needs to be followed up by further actions to ensure that Eskom is pulled out of the dilemma of gross mismanagement which is costing South Africans millions of rands on a daily basis.