New CEO starts at struggling South African power utility

The new CEO of South Africa’s struggling state-owned power utility, Eksom, finished his first day at work on Monday. 

Andre de Ruyter, who was not due to start until the middle of January, was hurried into the job following a fresh round of power cuts over the weekend. 

Eksom is some $30bn in debt and has had ten CEOs over the last decade. The company is weighed down by crumbling infrastructure and an insufficient capacity to generate energy. The company has warned that it could end up defaulting on its vast debts by April. More than half of this debt is guaranteed by the government and some international banks have described Eksom as the single biggest threat to South Africa’s economy. 

The latest round of blackouts, or load shedding, have been the most disruptive in South Africa’s history and are attributed to a perfect storm of rising costs, falling revenues, and decades of corruption and mismanagement. As well as keeping the lights on, Mr de Ruyter is tasked with overseeing a major restructuring process at Eksom. 

Eksom is one of the largest power utilities in the world and the crisis poses a major threat to the South African economy, as well as the political survival of President Cyril Ramaphosa, who hopes to secure reelection in May. 

Photo credit: Bloomberg | Waldo Swiegers