Mteto Nyati at BNC#8: Eskom turnaround proves SA can grow - but 1% is “survival, not success”

In a frank BNC#8 keynote, Eskom chairman Mteto Nyathi says the end of loadshedding and Eskom’s return to profit show what capable leadership can achieve. But he warns South Africa’s modest growth remains far below its potential. Nyathi argues the country must unlock its vast mineral wealth, make it easier for business to invest and restore law and order if it hopes to lead the green industrial revolution..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 Keynote Speech.Thank you so much for that warm welcome. I generally, as the Chairman of Eskom, never really get such a warm welcome when I'm invited. So you guys, you are very nice. Thank you so much. I truly appreciate it. And thank you, 01:36Alec, for inviting us—for inviting me. Just reflecting on the speakers this morning and reflecting on what Peter Major said: he certainly shared with us some of the really great scientists who have impacted our world positively. He mentioned Galileo. He mentioned Isaac Newton. I do think he also mentioned Albert Einstein. And he mentioned himself. I think he forgot one person: a "darkie". And 02:34that "darkie" is myself. He should have said that there is another person in this room belonging to another generation, a different colour, and that person is Mteto Nyati. But yeah, I'm mentioning myself; he forgot. So, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, fellow South Africans. 03:02I know here we've got proud South Africans, we've got frustrated South Africans, and we've got hopeful South Africans. A very good afternoon to all of you. It is indeed a privilege to stand here in this beautiful place, with the Table Mountain silhouette in our minds even if the ocean is at our feet, to ask 03:31the important question: where is South Africa going? That is what I was asked. And certainly, I am no Helen Zille, no Chris—or sorry, Cyril Ramaphosa. I'm not going to be looking at this necessarily from the politics. I'm going to be looking at it through the lens of energy, through the lens of Eskom. 04:01And I'm going to be attempting to answer that question: where are we going? 04:09Charles Dickens opened A Tale of Two Cities with the words, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." If ever a line captured our nation in early 2026, this is it. We have ended load shedding properly for the first time in years. And yes, as I've said, it’s just—you know—we have had a few days, sort of a year, and it is proper; there's not going to be load shedding coming back. 04:55As Eskom, we have boasted a profit after a decade of bleeding red. Inflation has been tamed, the Rand has steadied, and for the first time in a generation, we have had four quarters of positive GDP growth. You know, you are celebrating four quarters of GDP growth. 05:22I remember I used to work for a company, Microsoft, many years ago. And it's a company where we were delivering results. Each and every quarter, we had to announce our results; we had to be checking. And if I were to be standing in front of my leaders there at Microsoft, being excited just for delivering four consecutive quarters of growth, they would fire me, actually. 05:52Because that is actually nothing. Given where we come from, we should be excited in South Africa: four quarters of positive GDP growth. These are not small wins. These are proof that capable leadership, discipline, and focus can turn the ship. When the Eskom board appointed Dan Marokane—an ethical, experienced, 06:22and capable leader—as our Group CEO, some were quick to dismiss him. The DA in particular declared, "He does not inspire confidence." I often wonder, you know, what is it that the DA must have seen? How did they quickly get to that conclusion about this man, whom it took almost a year to find— 06:51a really capable person? How did they get to that conclusion? And it hit me. It hit me. They must have looked at the shape of his nose. And looking at that nose, "There is no way that this guy is going to be able to lead Eskom." But look at where we are now: no load shedding, black ink on our books, 07:18and a utility that is aligned with its core mission. It turns out that competence does inspire confidence—results even more so. Sometimes we have to let your work speak louder than the press release. 07:39Looking at the negative side, last year, our growth was only 1%—in fact, below 1% year-on-year as a country. And the projection for 2026 is a modest 1.6% growth. This is not a growth rate, in my opinion. This is a survival rate. It is nowhere near our potential. 08:08We should be running. 08:13We should be running this country at 4% to 6% sustained. We are not. And that disappoints me deeply. At this rate, we need another century to catch up to where we could have been yesterday. The GNU was a masterstroke of political pragmatism—a "rainbow coalition" born out of necessity. 08:42It brought us stability, but stability is not growth. The GNU has been cautious, incremental, and sometimes silent on the hard conversations we need to have. For me, I'm one of those people who was very excited when we had the GNU. But one thing that I've noticed is that 09:10we have not had the tough conversations that we should have been having. Conversations around the economy, conversations around law and order. People just came in; they are trying to run their little corners, their little departments. No; even if it meant that for a month or two or three months there is no movement forward, you needed to have at least the DA and the ANC fighting. 09:41Fighting and coming up with an agenda—an agenda that is going to be helping this country to grow. That did not happen. And I think we missed a great opportunity there. But that opportunity is not missed; we still can do that. We need to have one agenda for this country. Even if it may mean long hours of negotiation to come up with one. What does it mean? 10:08"National interest" in South Africa—what does that mean? Even just having that discussion can help clarify where things should be going. We have not had that discussion. All you are hearing are people and parties criticising each other. That's fantastic. Great. But have the conversation. Have the conversation. Confront each other. Discuss. Fight. But come out of those fights with a clear position 10:36that is going to be taking this country forward. 10:40So, in my view, we need a "GNU 2.0". Bolder, more decisive, informed by brutal realities rather than fragile consensus. We need leaders who understand that ideology is the enemy of progress. As Deng Xiaoping so famously put it: it does not matter 11:09if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice. We don't care about the colour of the policy. If it delivers jobs, dignity, investment, and growth, we take it—full stop. And if the cat happens to be a tabby or a ginger, 11:37or even a bit mangy from years of neglect, as long as the mice are caught, we are good. 11:48Look at our assets in South Africa. South Africa sits on a treasure trove: platinum, manganese, chrome, vanadium, rare earths—critical minerals the world desperately needs for the energy transition, batteries, renewables, aerospace, and defence. We've got all of those critical minerals here. 12:19The green industrial revolution is here and we are geologically blessed to lead it. But we cannot beneficiate a single gram of it without affordable, reliable, and secure energy. That is why Eskom is such an important element of all of this. We can have all of these dreams of beneficiation—fantastic—but 12:48not without fixing Eskom. And I know many of you are praying every day, hoping that Eskom can really die. I know. Maybe that's how we have made you feel as Eskom; we've let you down. But it would be short-sighted. It would be short-sighted to be praying 13:16for Eskom to die; you actually need a very strong Eskom. You need an Eskom that is world-class. You need an Eskom that is going to be powering the growth that this region needs—not just South Africa, but this region needs. So what you should be pushing for are capable leaders leading these entities, not for these entities—great assets like we have—to be dying. So, 13:45this is why, in my view, we need a strong, reformed Eskom. We are unbundling Eskom, but not privatising it. Generation, transmission, distribution, Eskom Green—each gets focus. Competition where appropriate, private capital where it accelerates delivery. We are fixing the fleet, rolling out 14:13smart meters to crush illegal connections, and partnering intelligently. The goal is simple, as I've already indicated: we need energy that is cheap and abundant for our smelters, for our factories to expand, for our mines to process locally, and for new industries—green steel, hydrogen, batteries—to take root here. 14:41In Africa, and here specifically in South Africa—not in Asia. I know many people in the governing party think that China is our "BFF". 14:57But when you look at it—if you look over the last 10 years or 15 years or so—we have lost close to 500,000 manufacturing jobs to China. And that is a problem. China is for China. We need to be driving an agenda—an agenda that is for South Africa. And at the core of that agenda, 15:29at the very core of that agenda, is a strong Eskom that knows what is expected of it; an Eskom that is delivering affordable, cheap electricity to enable all of these industries. 15:43So, when you're looking at it now from a geopolitical perspective: geopolitically, our non-aligned stance makes perfect sense. We get it. We say we are non-aligned. We say we trade with everybody. We say we take no side in these great power games. We say that we'll put South Africa first. But in practice, 16:12that is not what we see. In practice, we are seeing selective partnership. And that is where I think we are going wrong as a country. We really do need to move back to our non-aligned stance. And non-alignment only works if we are strong internally: strong economy, strong institutions, and strong rule of law. 16:40Which brings me to three non-negotiables we must lock in. One: we as a country now, broadly, must appoint ethical, capable leaders everywhere. I mean everywhere. I'm talking about the state-owned enterprises. Eskom must not be an exception; it must be everywhere, in all of our state-owned enterprises. 17:08So when I'm talking about a GNU that is working or not working, I'm asking myself: where is the GNU when we are still continuing to make these appointments in all of these critical institutions of people who are not capable? Where is the GNU there? So when we talk about SOEs, when we talk about municipalities, departments, schools, hospitals—we need, in my mind, leadership to matter. 17:38It starts there at the top. These are the people who are setting the tone. And the appointment of these leaders has to be our priority. So: appointment of ethical leaders, merit first. Cadre deployment has cost us dearly; competence deployment will rebuild us. Because appointing people who can't run a spaza shop 18:07to run a city is not transformation. It is comedy. And sadly, the joke is on all of us. Two: we must make sure that it is easy to do business in South Africa. 18:25This is the single most important thing. It saddens me when we see people in our government seeing us in business as the enemy. Business has to be the partner. And we have to be thinking, each and every time we wake up: "How can we make things easy for business?" Listening to the Ambassador today, 18:53hearing that there is this US investment accelerator that they have set up to try and drive investment—this shows clearly the deep understanding that other countries have of what the role of business should be. We need to make sure that in our own country, we make it easy for business to operate here. 19:22The third one, and the last point I'd like to make, is that we need to restore law and order. 19:34There is no society where criminals walk free and the owners live in fear. Visible policing, swift justice, zero tolerance for corruption—those should be the things that we're focusing on. Hey, we may think that these are radical ideas. These are not radical ideas. These are basics. They are practical, proven, and boringly effective. 20:03Countries that embrace them—countries like Singapore, countries like South Korea—hey, we're saying okay, it's happening—also countries like Rwanda on our own continent. These are countries that have embraced these ideas, have implemented them, and you can see the big difference that is happening in those countries. And lastly, technology is on our side. As someone who has worked for 20:31IBM for many, many years—for 12 years—worked for Microsoft for seven years, and I worked for Altron for seven years: technology is one of those things that is in my space. When I'm looking at the developments that are happening in that space, as someone who is now in the energy space, I'm excited about how AI is going to be driving the demand 21:01for the product that we are offering as Eskom. Which means that we can only get that benefit if we are available, if our product is available, and if our product is affordable. So we're excited about the developments that are happening around AI, digital infrastructure, and biotech. And none of them require any permission for people to do exciting things 21:28in those spaces. Our young people are already coding. They're innovating, they're exporting services. Let's give them the platform, the energy, the broadband, and the education reforms. Let's watch them build the next wave. This, for me—this technology space—when talking about levelling the playing fields, technology is that biggest leveller. We 21:55have to leverage this, with the young people who understand how to use this, but we have to help them. So the choice really is ours. We can drift, we can be complaining, we can be blaming and settling for mediocrity, or we can decide together to become the African powerhouse we were always meant to be. The diverse group of people that we are—talented, 22:25resilient, and pragmatic. I heard Helen saying here, "a boer maak 'n plan"—that's who we are. It does not apply just to the "Boer"; it applies to all of us. That's who we are in South Africa. We make things happen. So, as I wrote—I wrote a book, I have to include it somewhere—as I wrote in Betting on a Darkie: 22:53"When people transcend their differences and work together to achieve a common goal, greatness is possible." 23:09This is not just a line from a book; it is a lesson of my life. From boardrooms under apartheid to turning around institutions like Altron and Eskom, it is the lesson that South Africa needs now more than ever. Peter Drucker—and many of you would know, this is the guy who spoke about culture and strategy, 23:35though I can never really know how to connect all of them—he said something about those things. "Culture will eat strategy for breakfast." He had said something else as well, beyond just that. He said that "The best way to predict the future is to create it." So let us stop predicting decline. Let us create ascent. Business, government, citizens—black, white, 24:05brown, yellow, young and old. Let us catch the mice that matter. Let us drive growth, jobs, dignity, and hope. South Africa is not a lost cause. I know many, many people feel so. South Africa is not a lost cause. We have to do our part in our little areas. South Africa is a sleeping giant. We heard this; we heard this from the Ambassador. 24:36South Africa is one of the top 10 countries for the President of the United States. We are strategic. We can make things happen. We cannot lose hope. But it requires each and every one of us to reach out there and work with those who may look different from us. 25:03Let's not lose hope for this country. So with that, I would like to say thank you so much. I'm looking forward to your questions. Thanks.

Mteto Nyati at BNC#8: Eskom turnaround proves SA can grow - but 1% is “survival, not success”

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