BL Premium reports that it was announced late on Wednesday that André De Ruyter will leave Eskom with immediate effect. In a special board meeting, the Eskom board decided De Ruyter would not serve out his notice period.

The move leaves the ailing power utility leaderless, after the board only kicked off the process to appoint his replacement two weeks ago, despite De Ruyter submitting his resignation in December. This comes as load-shedding escalated to stage six over the weekend — with the utility now shedding 7000MW from the grid, the most ever. His sudden departure follows an explosive interview with eNCA's Annika Larsen, in which he directly fingered an ANC MP in the corruption at Eskom. De Ruyter told Larsen there was evidence to indicate that some in the ANC saw Eskom as a “feeding trough”. His revelation prompted a stinging rebuke from public enterprise minister Pravin Gordhan, who warned in parliament on Wednesday that De Ruyter should not “meddle” in politics. Eskom in a statement said it was “mutually agreed” that De Ruyter would leave on 28 February. He resigned late last year and a departure date of 31 March was announced. An acting CEO will be announced “shortly”. The Democratic Alliance (DA) has announced that it would launch a court application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act to obtain the identity of the ANC MP mentioned by De Ruyter.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Natasha Marrian at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
• Read too, Eskom CEO André de Ruyter leaves with immediate effect, at Moneyweb. En ook, Eskom-raad skop De Ruyter dadelik uit, by Maroela Media

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