What the country thinks about Eskom’s new balance sheet CEO, Calib Cassim

South Africa’s battling power utility Eskom has roped in a chartered accountant with 20 years of service at Eskom as interim Group CEO after the former CEO jumped off the hot seat.

Eskom has announced the appointment of Calib Cassim as interim Group Executive Officer with immediate effect, who will lead Eskom management.

Cassim was appointed as Eskom’s Chief Financial Officer in November 2018 after serving as acting CFO from July 2017.

He is a chartered accountant and holds a master’s degree in business leadership, with over 20 years of service in Eskom.

The power utility welcomed Cassim for stepping into the GCE role.

What now?

Now that the soapier part has ended, Cassim will literally be walking into a highly volatile position being buckling infrastructure at Eskom including an on edge country which has been pacing through stage 6 load shedding this week.

It’s almost a week as parts of the country undergo an indefinite stage 6 load shedding schedule.

Over 6000MW are being shed this week in an effort to stop the country from total grid collapse.

While stage 6 remains a challenge the country did dip into stage 7 between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter has left what has been described as a sinking ship which by the looks off it may be a tough task for incoming Cassim.

The accountant replaces the lawyer despite some around the country believing that the hot seat requires someone with an engineering background.

Eskom has appointed an interim CEO – Calib Cassim.

He is an accountant. Andre de Ruyter was a lawyer.

In my view Eskom needs a CEO with an engineering background, even in an acting capacity. The issues are very technical and they need someone with a real grasp of engineering pic.twitter.com/IRuV7C4qev

— Africa Research Desk 📚📁 (@MightiJamie) February 24, 2023

Every South African needs to watch Andre de Ruyter’s explosive interview with eNCA where he exposed grand-scale ANC corruption at Eskom.

We thank de Ruyter for the dedication and bravery he displayed during his tenure as Eskom CEO.

Full interview: https://t.co/ZmwplGtn2w pic.twitter.com/XCp0SHDC8j

— ActionSA (@Action4SA) February 24, 2023

An explosive interview on eNCA has De Ruyter fingering what could be seen as a ring of corruption which was assumed to be extinguished.

Corruption which according to De Ruyter’ s analysis multiplied has led to him officially leaving the Eskom drivers hot seat.

De Ruyter has officially left Eskom after three years at the helm.

His last day was expected to be on March 31, but the CEO appears to have changed his mind following a special board meeting on February 22, 2022.

The board resolved that De Ruyter did not have to serve the remainder of his notice period and would be released with immediate effect.

The now-former CEO left during a turbulent week where Eskom load shedding was set at stage 6 indefinitely only to briefly dip into stage 7 on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Also read: Andre De Ruyter leaves Eskom, Stage 7 kicks in, is it getting worse?