Why Eskom chased away skilled workers

BRITS POS - BRITS - For years, Eskom prioritised race targets over retaining and developing valuable technical skills. The power utility is now paying the price for this strategy.

- By Daily Investor

During Eskom's 2025 Winter Outlook briefing, chairman Mteto Nyati said the power utility did not meet expectations.

"We have not been proud of how we have performed. A few metrics showed that things did not align with what we were capable of doing," he said.

They have learned that Eskom does not have equipment issues. Instead, the problems centre around its employees.

"It is mainly leadership-related. We have to make sure they follow standard operating procedures and we hold people accountable," he said.

"We need to have tough conversations when we need to. We also need to recognise them when they do things well."

"All of the problems are leadership and management-related issues. That will be our focus when we move forward."

In 2023, energy analyst Professor Sampson Mamphweli said Eskom experienced a skills crisis.

"When you look at the skills required to run Eskom, the utility no longer has them," Mamphweli said.

"The fact that maintenance runs overtime and over budget, while also being of poor quality, reflects the lack of skills at Eskom."

He said the exodus of skilled employees began over a decade ago when the utility underwent an aggressive transformation process.

As part of this agenda, Eskom trained black engineers and pushed them into high-ranking positions within the organisation.

"In that process, Eskom lost good white engineers who chose to work overseas or in the private sector due to the increased political interference at the utility," he said.