The man who worked behind the scenes to end load-shedding

Eskom’s Group Executive for Generation, Bheki Nxumalo, has successfully turned around the ailing utility’s power plants and stopped load-shedding for the longest period in five years.

The utility’s CEO, Dan Marokane, and chairman, Mteto Nyati, have received the most praise for the load-shedding reprieve. However, they said Nxumalo deserves the credit. 

Eskom’s performance has greatly improved in 2024, with South Africa experiencing no load-shedding for over 200 days for the first time since 2018. 

This marks a dramatic turnaround from just a year ago when Eskom’s unreliable performance regularly plunged South Africa into rolling power cuts.

In particular, its coal-fired power stations have produced a much-improved performance. In the past, Eskom’s power stations would trip or break down soon after undergoing maintenance due to the poor quality of repairs. 

The utility has also managed to cut its diesel expenditure by over R10 billion compared to last year, reflecting its reduced reliance on open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) to stave off load-shedding. 

Many thought such a turnaround was impossible, and some even thought it was just an election ploy to keep the ANC in power. 

However, they have been proved wrong. Eskom’s improved performance has been sustained throughout winter and is expected to continue into 2025. 

Nyati credited the utility’s employees and new management team, saying poor maintenance and performance were merely symptoms of a deeper issue. 

“From far, when I looked at the problems at Eskom before becoming chairman, at the core of it, I thought was the people, and poor maintenance was just a symptom,” Nyati said. 

“When the new board got in there, the prevailing view from management was that the issue at Eskom was its old power stations, and the answer was to retire the fleet and allow the private sector to help generation through renewables.” 

During his first two weeks as Eskom chairman, Nyati led engagements with management at the utility beyond its executive team, led by Andre de Ruyter. 

“We did a deep dive on power station performance, talking to managers about what was going wrong. We needed to hear what was happening on the ground from the people doing the work.” 

Nyati said the engagements with power station managers were very insightful and revealed that the problems at Eskom had been misdiagnosed. 

“These issues were more fundamental. For example, we have leaders there who are not leading at all levels. We have managers that are not managing.” 

“People were sick and tired, saying, ‘We need to follow standard operating procedures, and things are not being followed’. That is because we had the wrong people employed in certain roles,” Nyati explained. 

“You need to have people who get it and understand what is going on. You need people who can pick up that feedback from employees at the plants, make sure it is accurate, and then hold people accountable.” 

As it turned out, Bheki Nxumalo was just the man Nyati and the board were looking for. 

How Nxumalo revived Eskom

On 14 April 2023, Nxumalo was appointed Group Executive for Generation and became responsible for implementing the board’s Generation Recovery Plan. 

“We have been searching for the Group Executive Generation for a while now. It has been very difficult to find a suitable candidate that would hit the ground running,” Eskom said at the time. 

“The Generation recovery plan is in full swing. We needed someone who would passionately drive the execution of the recovery plan while inspiring staff to reach beyond their reach.” 

“Recently, it occurred to us that our candidate was hidden in plain sight. That leader is Bheki Nxumalo.”

Nxumalo has been at Eskom since 2010 and has been working in the energy sector for over two decades. 

Before entering his current role, he was CEO of Eskom Enterprise and Eskom Rotek Industries and served as station manager at two power plants.

Eskom recently revealed the four pillars on which Nxumalo built the turnaround of the utility’s power stations in a performance update to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa). 

The first pillar is the people of Eskom, with Nxumalo being focused on engaging with employees on the ground as to what has gone wrong with the utility’s power stations in recent years. 

Eskom employees were also encouraged to celebrate wins, no matter how small, to improve morale and ensure following standard procedures was rewarded. 

The second pillar is termed ‘strategy’, which is closely tied to the first as part of it involved making power station managers directly responsible for the performance of their plants. 

As part of this, Nxumalo led a significant overhaul of Eskom’s power station managers, with over 40% of all managers being changed as they were in the wrong roles. 

Accountability as the third pillar is again closely tied to the first two. 

Nxumalo and his team imposed clear measurements against which individuals can be measured and implemented periodic reviews of the staff’s performance. 

Crucially, the performance of the staff was aligned to short-term incentives to ensure a quick turnaround in the quality of maintenance and overall performance. 

Finally, it was vital that Eskom communicated what it was doing to both its employees and the public to assure them it had a recovery plan and that its improved performance was sustainable. 

Importantly, Eskom also focused on telling people-centric stories to boost the morale of its workforce and make it clear that the fate of the utility is in their hands. 

“Now you have a team which is going to build the culture that you are looking for. A culture of accountability. A culture of discipline.”

“I literally grew up in Eskom. I strongly believe that Eskom has the technical and managerial capability to turn things around,” Nxumalo told MyBroadband.

“The majority of Eskom employees are passionate about their work and company. I know that I can count on the support of my colleagues in Exco and the new Eskom board to make this a reality.”