Eskom’s new CEO, Andre de Ruyter, says the power utility is in the process of appointing boards for its generation, transmission and distribution divisions, giving effect to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s directive that the utility must develop a new business model to become sustainable.

The plan to split the power utility into three operationally independent entities – which would still fall under an Eskom holding company – was announced by Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation address in February 2019, but has been opposed by unions the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the National Union of Mineworkers.

“We are, as Eskom, 100% aligned with what the president said. We intend to give full effect to the commitments that he made,” said De Ruyter, speaking at the utility’s quarterly state of the system media briefing.

De Ruyter said management had presented a proposal to “divisonalise” Eskom to the utility’s board this past week.

“We are in the process of appointing a board for each of these entities – we should be able to finalise these appointments, hopefully, during the course of next week,” he said.