Let's rake Eskom over coals in an open forum
November 11, 2009
 By Ann Crotty
During the past four weeks I have attended two parliamentary portfolio committee meetings, where the competition authorities were grilled about their performance over the past 12 to 18 months.
As I sat through the second of the meetings yesterday, I wondered how it could be that neither I nor my colleagues had attended a similar meeting at which the Eskom executives were required to give a public account of themselves.
Of course they are different entities, with different functions and reporting lines. The National Energy Regulator of SA does give Eskom a bit of a run for our money but it is not the same as the rather adversarial "come and explain yourselves" routine that the portfolio committees have put the competition guys through.
At yesterday's hearing much was made of the need to protect the poor from the anti-competitive activities of the corporate sector; the possibility that the competition authorities were not doing their best to achieve this was touched on a few times.
And so there seems to be little doubt that our elected MPs have the desire and the capacity to police government bodies reasonably well. That this is done in an open forum is more encouraging.
It also seems that the powerful telecoms companies can be held to account by MPs.
So how come the appaling economy-threatening mess that is Eskom has escaped similar rigorous scrutiny?
There are probably lots of legislative and procedural explanations for this but if, as was stressed time and again at yesterday's committee meeting, a principle concern of our MPs is to ease the plight of the poor, then surely Eskom should be subjected to the same open scrutiny?
It is difficult to understand why the competition authorities - which happen to be functioning extremely well - are explaining themselves regularly in open forums while Eskom, which is barely functioning, is left to fumble along in a dense fog of accusation and counter-accusation.
The latest accusations relate largely to incompetence and racism and paint a picture of a troubled company, in which management is rendered ineffectual by racism.
Racism is too serious an issue in this country to allow the allegations, most of which seem to have been made by the Black Management Forum (BMF) and the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), to go uninvestigated. It is useful that they remind us all about our troubled past but these two unelected bodies seem to be assuming, or being allowed to assume, an inappropriate amount of influence over government policy. Or at least, that is how it seems to the citizens who are left out in the dark.
The allegations must be investigated in an open forum; if correct then determined action must be taken; if not then it is time to challenge the BMF and ANCYL's grandstanding and the apparent relinquishing of authority by the government. And once the Eskom investigation is complete, we should move onto Transnet followed by SAA.
And while that is happening the competition authorities will no doubt continue to investigate the alleged anti-competitive practices of the former parastatals ArcelorMittal South Africa and Telkom, having settled their cases against Sasol.
This country has not been served well by the so-called national champions that were created during the National Party era. They are either incapable of delivering what they were supposed to, or are delivering at hugely inflated prices.
The good news is that we have competent and keen people and a vigorous parliamentary committee system. It should be allowed to do its work.
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