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Load shedding had a significantly negative impact on total real GDP and on economic subsectors in the third quarter of 2022. According to the Reserve Bank’s quarterly economic report, 2.3 percentage points were shaved off the 1.6% growth recorded in the third quarter. The bank said load shedding in South Africa had been more frequent in recent years, increasing from 9.7% of the time in 2015 to 33.4% of the time in 2022 (until the end of October).
During the third quarter of 2022, the bank said, load shedding had reached an all-time high of 1 054 hours, or 47.7% of the time. This included a severe period of power outages when 187 hours of stages 5 and 6 load shedding were implemented.
The Reserve Bank said:
This comes a day after Eskom CEO André de Ruyter threw in the towel and handed in his resignation. The country endured the worst levels of load shedding with de Ruyter at the helm. The drop in economic growth has been largely attributed to Eskom's failure to keep the lights on.
But Business Unity SA (Busa) says De Ruyter’s departure is a major blow for Eskom and to efforts to address the energy crisis in the country.
Eskom confirmed on Wednesday that its CEO would serve three months' notice, following his resignation earlier in the week. De Ruyter’s resignation comes after the country went through the worst load shedding in the past year, including stage 7. The Bureau for Economic Research said this was harming businesses, considering that companies that are major power users are usually asked to reduced demand when Eskom can't keep the lights on.
Busa CEO Cas Coovadia said:
In a statement, Eskom has put to bed speculation that its board chair Mpho Makwana would take over in the interim.
READ: Is André de Ruyter to blame for Eskom's blackout woes?
“The Eskom board has confirmed that there is no plan for the chairman to become an interim CEO and that a comprehensive executive search will be conducted to find a suitably qualified candidate.”
Meanwhile, the Black Business Council, which has on a number of occasions called for De Ruyter to be fired, welcomed his resignation. CEO Kganki Matabane said:
Labour federation Cosatu said Eskom had its worst performance under De Ruyter’s leadership, with record high load shedding taking place on his watch. De Ruyter took over the helm at Eskom in 2020 and promised to deal with load shedding but, instead, as at last week, South Africans had to endure over 3 000 hours of load shedding in 2022 as the extent of power cuts crippled livelihoods of businesses, the general economy and communities across the country.
Not only did Eskom under De Ruyter fail at the one job it was meant to do, but the power utility has yet to produce its financial results which were due on March 31. And not much of a dent has been made to its mountain of debt of nearly R400 billion. The utility was expected to submit it financial results for the year 2020/21 to Parliament by September 30 2022, but there have been excuses. It was reported that Eskom would release its financials by December, when it was supposed to release its interim results for the current financial year, but none of this happened. There isn’t a date on when last year's financials will be released, let alone this year’s interim results.
READ: Blame game as Eskom crisis deepens
Cosatu said the challenges at the utility had proved to be too much for De Ruyter to handle. “The resignation of André de Ruyter is not good enough, though; we need answers from the relevant political principals. If this problem is not handled diligently, it has the potential to mutate from an energy crisis into a political crisis. Ministers Pravin Gordan and Gwede Mantashe need to provide a solid and coherent political intervention. They have so far offered nothing but generic platitudes and this is unsustainable.”
Some energy analysts have blamed Mineral Resources Minister Mantashe, who publicly criticised De Ruyter on several occasions, for part of the reason for De Ruyter's departure. He leaves Eskom with an energy availability factor of below 50%, from 70% the previously.
Public Enterprises Minister Gordhan thanked De Ruyter and said: “André has carried an enormous burden on behalf of South Africa. I want to thank him for his sacrifice and resilience in a difficult job.”
