Fin24 reports that the appointment of a new CEO of Eskom has gone back to the drawing board after the recommendation made by the Board was not accepted by Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan.

It has been nine months since previous CEO André de Ruyter announced his resignation. The appointment of a new CEO was regarded as "urgent", with chief financial officer Calib Cassim appointed at the end of February to act in the position for six months. It is now clear Cassim will be acting in the position for much longer. After De Ruyter's departure, the Eskom board advertised the post and embarked on an executive search. Following interviews, in May it forwarded one name to Gordhan. The recommendation was one of the four frontrunners for the job. After several months' pause, during which Gordhan questioned the board on the process, he told Eskom chair Mpho Makwana that he required him to submit three names for deliberation. In reply to questions on Monday, Gordhan’s spokesperson, Ellis Mnyandu, said it was a requirement of Eskom’s memorandum of incorporation (MOI) "that the board evaluate potential candidates for appointment as the GCEO and submit to the shareholder a shortlist of 3 (three) candidates". Mnyandu declined to provide a copy of the MOI. However, the MOI on Eskom’s website requires only that the board provide "a shortlist" but does not specify how short the list can be. It is now not clear what the Eskom board’s next steps must be, and whether it is required to add two of the other frontrunners to the list or whether it must start the process afresh, having not come up with three recommendable candidates in the first round.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Carol Paton at Fin24 (subscriber access only)

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