The Ministry of Public Enterprises made a surprise announcement of his appointment on Monday afternoon.
On Monday afternoon, the Ministry of Public Enteprises made the announcement that Andre de Ruyter, currently the CEO of Nampak, has been appointed as the CEO of embattled energy utility Eskom.
Here are three important facts about his appointment:
- De Ruyter has accepted a compensation package lower than what the position should be paying, in light of the dire financial circumstances in which Eskom currently finds itself. While further details of the remuneration package were not revealed at this stage, the Ministry of Public enterprises thanked him for this act.
- He was selected from a longlist of 142 potential candidates, eight of whom were Eskom employees. Seventeen individuals were then shortlisted, from which eight withdrew, and six were selected for final interviews. Three candidates were submitted in terms of Eskom's Memorandum of Incorporation with government, and De Ruyter's appointment was agreed by a team of cabinet ministers.
- Although De Ruyter's current role is at the packaging company Nampak, prior to that, he had over 20 years of experience at petrochemicals group Sasol, so has some experience with energy generation.
De Ruyter will assume his duties at Eskom on 15 January, and will be leading the reorgansiation of the utility, including its separation into three entitites, responsible for genration, transmission and distribution.
