BNC#8 Mteto Nyati Q&A - Power, politics, and the fight to keep South Africa’s lights on

A candid, high-stakes conversation unpacks Eskom’s turnaround, leadership challenges, and South Africa’s energy future. From coal versus renewables to rising costs, corruption crackdowns, and global competitiveness, the discussion cuts through popular narratives and tough realities. With insights on policy, innovation, and national interest, it reveals how strategic decisions, not slogans, will shape growth, jobs, and stability - while highlighting the urgent need for accountability, smarter investment, and a relentless focus on delivering reliable, affordable power..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the Q&A .Alec Hogg (00:00:06 - 00:23:12)My first obvious question is, did the did the asset managers come and shake your hand? Because Mteto is one of the great value creators in South Africa. Look it up. Go.Go and have a look at at BizNews at some of the stories you've done. You went into Altron, turned it around and added huge value to the shareholders.(00:23:12 - 00:46:00)So now I want to know. I mean, you blew your own trumpet, like Peter blew through his own as well. But do they come to you and say thank you? Thank you for what you did for me? Mteto NyatiYou know, I've always thought these were people who, you know, they are not personable. They are not, you know, they, busy behind their screens are focusing on.(00:46:04 - 01:09:10)But these are guys that truly appreciate when you have added value, you know, and many, many times if and now I've met many of them today they invite me to, to to come to their offices and get some updates. And they will always be saying, hey, you know what you guys have done in Eskom? It's really already been, amazing.(01:09:14 - 01:35:46)And yeah, we appreciate that because not many people, not many people tell us that, you know, not that we're forever looking also looking for people to be praising us, but but the kind of work that we do, it is yeah. Many people just, you know, you all you get when you're doing this kind of work, you blame, you know, people are forever blaming us.Alec Hogg (01:36:00 - 02:00:47)Now, I remember walking around Sandton city. Yeah, with Patrice Motsepe before he was, he was still famous, but not as famous as he is today. Yeah, and people stopped him every, everywhere. It was impossible. You couldn't go with his guy because people wanted to shake his hand and thank him. Do you get that?Mteto Nyati (02:01:00 - 02:26:49)Everywhere , and I go to the airport, you know, going there.And I was going with my wife that day was like, we're going. And then the guard, you know, like people they can recognise, you can see how much this load shedding was impacting people's lives negatively, you know, and how much of a relief it is that they realised that actually, most of the stuff, most of the problems that we have in our country, they are solvable.(02:27:03 - 02:50:08)All we need really is to focus. For me, I put this we need to focus on leadership. Leadership matters. Alec HoggI loved what you said there, but I loved even more what you said about nonaligned. Because nonaligned is a it's, it's a drum that we've been beating at business for a long time. Put South Africa first. Forget about everybody else in the world.(02:50:08 - 03:12:38)We've got enough problems. Let's fix what we have here. Just expand on that a little bit for us. How you would see South Africa's nonaligned status, what we had to change and say can be once, once we achieve the way that you perceive nonaligned, what the what the dividends could be. Mteto NyatiYeah. For example, I look at the, the issue of smelters.(03:12:42 - 03:34:09)I'm going to bring it into my space, which is the energy space. A number of smelters had been really complaining about our price, two of them. And and we've recently given them a price of 0.62 cents Yeah, 50, 0.62 cent and they.(03:34:13 - 04:16:37)They think that they that it's good enough for them to compete with China. But our own research tells us that China is, is is not just that electricity component that makes China to be to beat them. It's also the technology that China is using, you know, to, to, to do the smelting process. Right. So my point about all of this is that, okay, if you understand that China beats, you why don't you invite China to actually come and do local processing here instead of yes(04:16:40 - 04:41:31)They've got the latest technology. They've got this. So you invite them, you know, to provide them with, of course, the, with the, with the electricity that is affordable. So on the one hand, because they are leading China is leading in the manufacturing space to try and find a way to do that. But on the other hand, there are many, many things as you have heard from the ambassador, 500 companies from the US that already here.(04:41:31 - 05:05:31)I used to work for two of them for IBM for 12 years, for six years Microsoft the investment that those countries have made here is huge. If you look at thinking, I you cannot be talking a without talking about these American companies like Google, Microsoft, AWS, you know, so you've got to work with them too, you know.(05:05:31 - 05:32:22)So my point here is that we really have to be looking at what is it that we want, what we want as a country, a jobs what we want is a country is growth. And that should be the thing that is is helping us to make those decisions and for us to be making stupid, decisions around doing some practice thing with there with some countries that is going to be putting us in a in that bad space.(05:32:22 - 05:57:26)It's uncalled for. I call that is like own goals and necessary own goals that we are making. Why do we have to do that? You know, so that's just what I been. I mean, we need to be making those decisions and all of the decision have to be driven by a national interest. That's why I say that in GNU, you there needs to be a discussion there.(05:57:30 - 06:22:18)We say, what does it mean, this thing of national interest, so that any actions going forward must be guided by what has been agreed with it? It will not be decided by each and every department which will interpret things differently. Alec HoggRob Hersov of convince me to go to the AAC, meeting in London February last year, and it was an eye opener.(06:22:22 - 06:48:14)It is the guys who kind of on the right. And I said to him, it's you and your right wing buddies, but it isn't quite as bad as that. But they were very anti climate change. And what they were explaining was that the West was committing economic suicide, where China continues to grow its coal fired power station. So the Chinese emissions just keep going up and the West is going down.(06:48:18 - 07:08:05)And costing themselves terribly. Now, we in South Africa used to have the cheapest power in the world. We've got lots of coal and going to a conference like that, you come back home, you say, but why aren't we pushing these coal fired power stations? What is it that we are doing that is going to make that much difference to the rest of the world?(07:08:05 - 07:33:37)If the rest of the world are polluting anyway? It's a hard subject. But for you, sitting as chairman of Eskom, is there not at least some room for us to start using our own assets in that way as well? Mteto NyatiWe need to be driven by our national interest, our economic strategy. Our policies have to be driven by what what matters for South Africa.(07:33:41 - 08:04:30)So when we took over, that was three years ago. We got into this. But what we picked up was that it was a strategy to shut down this coal fired power station, coal fired power stations, and we believed that was all wrong decision to do that. We reversed that. So I'm just being open. Would have guessed that. But we have made a commitment because many of them are going to be shutting down in 26 and 27.(08:04:34 - 08:36:45)And I said, okay, let's move that to 2030, because between now and then we want to invest and in technologies that helps us to address emissions. Because the problem is not coal, the problem is emissions. So if you can find a way of reducing or eliminating that, then you can continue with the coal. The issue is that it's not just about shutting down the power stations of Eskom.(08:36:45 - 09:03:31)It's also about mining related to not think about the jobs on those mines, you know, so so that is our strategy. And if you look now at the IRP, 2025, the resource plan for energy for South Africa, you can see that, you know, it's giving us an option to go beyond 2030, with some of these power stations that were planned to be.(09:03:36 - 09:27:33)So we have made we have made the decision as the board and we will continue to be focusing on on trying to find ways and means of minimising emissions. Alec HoggAgain, it realigns with what you said earlier about the, the, putting South Africa first. Yeah. You know, we like to talk here about being thoughtful patriots. I love that saying.(09:27:33 - 09:49:43)And I think everyone in the BizNews tribe, if you can align with that, if you can relate to that, I'm a thoughtful patriot. It means that you don't accept blindly what you told to accept, but you think about it and clearly from from what we've heard. Now, that's that's a big part of of your thinking. There's a lot of questions here.(09:50:02 - 10:22:27)Sullivan O'Carroll asks, how will Eskom survive longer term with reducing demand and nonpaying municipalities. Mteto NyatiSo that us I think it was, I think it was, Piet Viljoen who said something like power, power, something about narrative. Power shapes narrative. I think it says something along those lines. There are many narratives that are out there.(10:22:31 - 10:59:25)And and some of them, we just take them without questioning them, and we accept them as gospel truth. But in reality, it is. This statement is actually not true. You know, the demand for electricity is actually going up. It's not going down. So so somehow you think that Eskom is not I mean, well, yes, we are introducing competitors to Eskom, but the pie is becoming bigger and bigger and bigger.(10:59:32 - 11:27:19)So we will have a smaller share of the pie, but we will still be doing more in terms of the energy that we sell than in the previous year. So the demand demand from things like from from data centers, the demand from Rob is working on bitcoin mining. You know, that's a huge opportunity for Eskom. Bitcoin mining demand from EVs.(11:27:23 - 11:53:10)Most of that on that switch you know switch from fossil fuel when if you are in the oil industry to be worried about the reduced demand in the oil industry for your product. But in our case, because we again made the decision as the new board of Eskom that we are going to be participating in renewables when we go to there.(11:53:14 -12:19:36)It had been no, Eskom was not going to be participating in renewables, were not going to be building new, renewables plans. We said, no, no, I, I presiding over an entity. All we're doing was just slowly seeing this thing dying. Why would we do that? What is the point of a board if you, if your job is to be looking after an entity, just looking at it, dying slowly?(12:19:42 - 13:02:25)No. We said we, that's when we came up with Eskom Grim. That is going to be competing with other renewables. So we are going to be participating in it in the new we are going to be participating in nuclear because key to this, we cannot as a country, depend only on renewables. The issue with that is that you need energy that is always available when you need it, but unfortunately, in some weeks, on days when you need some of the renewable energy is just not there because it may be the weather, it may be the wind.(13:02:37 - 13:32:15)So you need baseload technologies like nuclear, you need baseload technologies like coal. That's an important part of what we have chosen to to be able to provide as Eskom to industry in South Africa. You know, many people here were saying, mining companies are moving away from Eskom. They are moving into renewables. Really. I mean, to do mining with smelters.(13:32:19 - 13:52:42)And no, it's not through. So we need to be questioning some of the things we just take as if it is truth. And most of the time it's.Alec HoggIt's it's fabulous to hear you, looking at it that way, because that's not the way we thought about it in the past. In many areas in South Africa.(13:52:46 - 14:14:40)And now it's it's embracing. It's a complex world and it's not asymmetrical. There's many, many different issues. Okay. John Mark's question do you support growth of coal fired energy, or does Eskom subscribe to the EU narrative that it is energy cost, suicide and net zero? I might have asked you that.Mteto NyatiYeah, I think we have already addressed that.14:14:40 - 14:53:43But but I'm going to I'm going to answer it here, clearly by saying that as the board of Eskom, we believe that we've got a responsibility to our environment. We have to minimise emissions. That is very important. So a responsible use of coal technology is something that we, therefore that's why we have put all of our collective efforts, our R&D teams locally and going elsewhere, looking at how other countries have reduced, continue to use coal, but that it's significantly reduced emissions.14:53:43 - 15:19:02So that is what we have therefore. Alec HoggBut that makes sense if you think about it. Let's not dump everything. Let's make it more efficient. Mteto NyatiIt just makes common sense if you want to continue, if you want to be to be competing with the Chinas of this world, if you want to make sure that there is re industrialisation in South Africa, you have to have coal in the mix.Alec Hogg (15:19:06 - 15:43:47)I've just you've mentioned it twice, so I have to share with you it was a piece in our partners in London from the ft. Where they said the IMF is now fighting with China, asking them to cut the subsidy of industry from 4% of GDP to 2% of GDP. Well, so the Chinese take 4% of their GDP and they pump it into their industry.(15:44:01 - 16:15:27)How can you compete? It's just very, very crazy. Thabani's question, electricity has become so expensive in South Africa lately, making it unaffordable to a lot of households. Is there a plan to reduce the cost about this a year ago? Mteto NyatiYes, there is a plan. So when we got in, our priority was to make sure that we continue to have the lights on and we now have that and this shift, the focus have completely shifted within our organisation.(16:15:39 - 16:41:46)If you go to our CEO and his executive all the way down, they have got the targets of taking out costs from the system. It's going to be painful for the next 4 or 5 years is going to be painful, but it is the road that we have to take if we want to be able to, to deliver on our mission of being that company that is powering the growth of the country.(16:42:08 - 17:09:27)You cannot power the growth with expensive energy that we have. We have to be going down. So we've given them 112 billion rand of of costs that have to be taken out over the next five years. That is huge. It's going to be painful. Alec HoggIf you have a look at what's happened around the world and South Africa as well, we've had we've had some state monopolies.(17:09:32 - 17:37:06)Telkom is a good example. Yeah. Telkom has had to adapt to the new world and it competes. Are there any examples around the world that Eskom can learn from or pick lessons up on now competing with the private sector? Mteto NyatiYes. I mean, if you look at almost all of Europe, even in the Middle East, even in Brazil, you know, for example, when we're doing this unbundling that we're doing, we're not doing it in a vacuum.(17:37:10 - 18:04:24)We're doing it informed by what has happened in other countries and learning some of those lessons. We have seen how painful this shift to much quickly shifting to renewables. What that has done to many countries in Europe. The price instead of going down, the prices have gone up. And, and I like it because they can depend on each other.(18:04:34 - 18:33:28)If Germany does not have the power, it can depend on its neighbours. But here, if we do not have, we know during load shedding we could not call. Hey, I'm calling Lesotho, can you help us? Or Botswana, Malawi? No, we're on our own, you know. So we had to to learn what was happening and that the battle is going to be fought around generation and also around distribution.(18:33:32 - 19:01:18)So that's where, you know, and this opening up of the of the, of the space. And we are going to be facing huge competition in distribution and also in generation. And and and this ultimately is going to be good for, for all of us as consumers. Alec HoggIt's incredible how far we've come. Sometimes we need to look back to remember where we were five years ago, where the private sector was not allowed to generate electricity.(19:01:18 - 19:40:29)Yes. None after. I'm glad you here. Your question is, South Africa has exported its energy intensive ferro alloys and beneficiation industries, with Eskom playing a leading role with an available, and expensive electricity. What is Eskom doing to turn this around? Mteto NyatiYou may have heard two weeks ago, we made a decision, that we, you know, that whole industry, they came, they said this is the price that we believe will be able to help us to, to compete.(19:40:33 - 20:08:42)And we had to look the fact that now we were profitable, this drive that we are driving to take out the cost, we find that we can find a price that is sustainable for us. And we gave them this is the 0,62 cents per kilowatt hour, and that is the price that that we believe will make many of them to continue to be doing, local, processing.Alec Hogg (20:08:46 - 20:34:18)Well, if you can keep it there, who knows. We could have another boom starting again on smelting. Yes. Can always happen. A question now from Stephan who says as property developers, we often require new many substations for our projects to avoid delays and occupation, we pay Eskom's upgrade costs many months in advance, nine plus months.(20:34:22 - 21:06:02)Yet installation dates are still frequently pushed out with little accountability or communication. This leaves us with tenants ready to occupy while we are forced to run temporary generators at significant cost just to power their businesses. What accountability exist for these delays, and how will developers get certainty on delivery timelines once infrastructure has been paid for? Mteto NyatiYeah, if you if if you look at where we are now, I mean where behind load shedding is behind us.(21:06:13 - 21:36:26)But the big, big issue that we're facing as a company is, yes, it's the electricity price. But the other one is the service. Our service, the quality of our service to our customers. So it's our distribution business. That's why we're actually vulnerable. We say we are vulnerable because that's where competitors will come in. So our big focus now, for example, we are in the market to look for the head of distribution.(21:36:30 - 22:01:15)Because we believe that we need a complete culture change in that organisation of ours if we are going to be able to to be competitive. So what I'm hearing from, in terms of that question, I agree, you know, we sucks , our service is it's terrible. It's terrible, but we have to change it. You know, we need time.(22:01:19 - 22:27:06)Peter asks. We have heard horrific stories of corruption in the past. Where are we now on eliminating or at least reducing the corruption in Eskom in a personal thing, why is Mark Pamensky not in jail? Mteto NyatiSo, when you look at corruption in Eskom, I'm going to say that many of you would say, okay, is corruption behind us.(22:27:06 - 22:52:10)No, it's going to take years. What you need to do, which is what we are doing each and every time, we are looking at ways and means of tightening your controls. You pick up fines that someone has done something wrong, make an example of that person. People must see that person going to jail or being fired, which is exactly what we're doing.(22:52:22 - 23:19:21)Almost every week. There is someone either being fired or sent to jail. That is what is happening. We have SIU together with SAPs stationed now in Eskom, working alongside our management to investigate these cases. That's how serious this matter we have taken and there are consequences. But I can tell you, unfortunately, this kind of thing, it's just it's a culture thing.(23:19:21 - 23:43:42)It will take a long time for us to root it out from the system, but we have to start somewhere. Alec HoggPamensky is an interesting point. And he was the Guptas point man. He was on the board. He was a chief operating whatever. And they were really, really facilitating industrial scale plunder. Are you making any progress on getting those people?(23:43:46 - 24:12:23)People? I mean, people like our former CEO, you know, all of those people. The thing is, it's certain things are beyond Eskom. When people are outside of Eskom, what can you do? It's now the law enforcement agencies that needs to do their work, you know. Yeah. Alec HoggAre you are you happy? Are you confident that we've now got, with a change at the NPA, that we could actually have some progress there after many years?Mteto Nyati (24:12:27 - 24:35:17)I must say that from the in SIU perspective, it's that leader. He was working closely with us over the last three years. Now he has moved to NPA. That is good news. It's really good news. So we'll have two key, entities that will be helping with this effort. Yeah. Is someone who likes to make things up and is action oriented.(24:35:17 - 24:58:11)He wants to see results. And I'm excited about what what he's already showing. Alec HoggSo I make a note to that Ian, see how that, how that goes through. Winston wants to know, what are your thoughts on homes going off grid in general? How does that affect is so.(24:58:15 - 25:26:18)Many people say that they, they will come and meet me and say, hey, we are off the grid. I mean, they are proudly saying we are off the grid. And and until you have got a, you know, an issue of the weather for a week or two and then they quietly come back. So, so there is also that element of this thing of being off the grid is, yes, off the grid, but not really.(25:26:22 - 25:51:20)You know, that's there are still there many, many people are still there who claim to be off the grid. But to answer your question, what what you see happening when you look at the demand in Eskom, the demand goes, we call it like a dark curve in the morning, you know, in the morning, a huge demand coming up as people wake up and, you know, preparing to go to work, huge demand.(25:51:24 - 26:27:32)And then as the day goes by, then the demand comes down because that's where you see the, the solar PV kicking in, you know, so they need less of Eskom, using on their own. So, so what that does is it creates so much complexity in the way we are managing the grid, because all of a sudden if something happens, those people come back quickly into the asking because now they are no longer, you know, exposed to the sun.(26:27:32 - 27:01:36)They they're looking for support from Eskom. We need to be very flexible. So what it has done is that it has it has helped us to build the flexibility muscle. During the day we actually have an excess capacity. So we need to find ways, creative ways and means of using that capacity. This is where we think that Bitcoin during those times, that's where will be selling that excess capacity to to companies that are in the Bitcoin space.Alec Hogg (27:01:40 - 27:29:29)Who would have thought the chairman of Eskom would be talking about selling of capacity to Bitcoin mine? I mean, it really is beyond the wildest dreams. Russell I'm sure you know, Russell, formerly at the stock market stock Exchange. He says on the second part of the question, how do you get municipalities to pay Eskom? Mteto NyatiYou know, municipalities are interesting.(27:29:29 - 28:01:48)You know, this is a huge problem that we have in this country, which is it is more about I think Helen touched a little bit on it is really about the values that we as a society have. Because think about it. Here is a municipality, is collecting money from the consumers. People are paying the municipality, but the municipality just happens to forget paying Eskom, you know, think about that.(28:02:02 - 28:31:05)But but now when people don't pay them, you know, your, your, your, what what your role modeling are you doing? You are not paying, but you are asking people to pay you, you know, so we have got this is a societal problem that we need to be dealing with. But what we have done, we've worked together with, Department of Finance, National Treasury, we've worked with, the department that is responsive Cogta.(28:31:09 - 29:02:22)And we have come to an agreement, something called distribution agency agreement. So where we are going to be managing the electricity unit of the municipality collections, investing in the infrastructure, because when people are talking about load reduction and it's is actually the municipality that has not invested in the infrastructure, they're using that money, like Helen was saying, using that money for other things.(29:02:26 - 29:31:42)So we have this a distribution agency agreement where we are appointed as the people that would be responsible for the entirety of the electricity unit of the superlative collections, making sure that there are no illegal connections in doing all of that and investing in the infrastructure. So that is that is what we have just been able to get and with the support of National Treasury.(29:31:46 - 29:58:11)So that will go a long way because that money we are collecting, it does not go to the municipality. It goes. And then, of course, any normal person who is collecting the money and is being owed, they would, before passing some of the money back that they would pay themselves. Alec HoggSo it's interesting, just as a kind of final comment or, on that.(29:58:15 - 30:26:21)The partnership with Treasury, with National Treasury is not fully appreciated. How much how, how much positive effect has that had ? Mteto Nyatiit has had a huge impact. And if you think about there are two people that I would like to call out is the late, minister Pravin Gordhan. He played such an important role in the turnaround of Eskom because most of the issues that are facing in Eskom are people related.(30:26:25 - 30:52:16)You know, things like, for example, the fact that we did not have incentives for for staff because you need to drive a performance based culture, you know, within the company. That's how normal companies do. You have got incentives, short term incentives and long term incentives. People get salary increases if they are performing. If they are not, they don't get anything, you know.(30:52:21 - 31:18:35)So we did not have that leave. Everybody was being treated at the same, because National Treasury during the time of, Minister Mboweni, they had removed all of those instruments, all of those tools from the board of Eskom. We said, no, we need all of that back. We need to also make sure that this the leaders that we have in Eskom, they are not on a short term contract five years.(31:18:35 - 31:48:23)They must be thinking. They must be thinking long term because these power stations, these nuclear. It was talking 15 years. We've got a CEO whose contract is five years is not aligned with no. We need to change all of that. He facilitated he helped us to address those big issues. So that's one piece. And that has helped us to create a culture that is driven by performance within Eskom and also National Treasury .(31:48:23 - 32:14:42)came to the party when it comes to the debt relief, and that debt relief has helped us a lot to be able to channel most of the funds to a maintenance that has made us to be where we are, you know, otherwise they did not have money to do maintenance and so so we are where we are now, sitting with a debt of about 350 billion, coming from about 480.(32:14:46 - 32:37:28)And it's coming down with think that the kind of the level of debt that we should be having. It's about 300. At 300, it will allow us to be able to to maintain what we have and also be able to invest in the future. So National Treasury has played a great role in partnering with us to get us to be where we are now.Alec Hogg (32:37:32 - 32:41:32)Mteto Nyati, it's it's a it's been a privilege and a pleasure, as always. Thank you. Mteto NyatiThank you.

BNC#8 Mteto Nyati Q&A - Power, politics, and the fight to keep South Africa’s lights on

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