Eskom board’s Busisiwe Mavuso defends her decision to walk out of Scopa meeting

Eskom board’s Busisiwe Mavuso defends her decision to walk out of Scopa meeting

After a heated exchange with Scopa chair Mkhuleko Hlengwa, Mavuso walked out of the meeting to discuss the state of the struggling utility.

JOHANNESBURG – Busisiwe Mavuso, an Eskom board member, said she wore the decision to walk out of a Scopa meeting last week as a badge of honour if it was ‘politics of the gutter,’ as the committee put it.

After a heated exchange with Scopa chair Mkhuleko Hlengwa, Mavuso walked out of the meeting to discuss the state of the struggling utility.

This came after Mavuso stated that Eskom’s board of directors and CEO, Andre De Ruyter, would not be made scapegoats for the utility’s previous difficulties, which she attributes to the ANC-led government.

Hlengwa reprimanded Mavuso, telling him that the gathering was not for partisan politics before telling him to ‘behave.’

“Does behave mean answer the way I expect you to? I had better like the answer that you are going to give or else? If that conduct of walking out is politics of the gutter as he put it, then I wear politics of the gutter as a badge of honour,” said Mavuso on Monday.

Meanwhile, Hlengwa stated unequivocally that the ANC is to accountable for Eskom’s shambolic state.

Scopa, on the other hand, demanded explanations from the board about Eskom’s inability to follow 14 of the 23 recommendations issued by the committee, stating that they cannot avoid being held accountable to the committee.

“She speaks about Kusile being completed in 2023 and that was the commitment they made in 2019. But in this oversight visit, they have moved that to 2024. So, maybe you can see why the committee is not happy, Eskom is not performing and is not delivering on its core mandate, which is to supply electricity to the grid,” said Hlengwa.