SA media reporting on Eskom is racist

Eskom board chair Mteto Nyati says the South African media's reporting on the power utility's turnaround has been unbalanced due to racism.

Speaking to Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh during an episode of This Economy, Nyati said the media tries to find excuses to explain the success of black leadership at Eskom.

"I was seeing racism in the media when it comes to the issue of performance," he said.

He explained that when a white person was seen failing a particular task, reports would often blame other factors for their failure.

"That's why this person failed," he said. "When that person succeeds, it's all him or her. He or she did it right."

"Substitute that person with a black person. When it's a black person succeeding, people are looking at the environment, saying it must be a miracle, you know, some kind of divine intervention."

Nyati said that in these cases, the media tends to report that they must be doing something wrong, such as burning lots of diesel, or that other factors, like rooftop solar, have contributed to their success.

"It's all these other things, but not the person, right? But of course, when bad things are happening, it's ‘of course, what did you expect?'" he said.

"There is that big societal issue that we need to face."

Nyati claimed to be comparing media reporting on Eskom during André de Ruyter's tenure as CEO to reporting on the utility under the current CEO, Dan Marokane.

This was not the first time Nyati complained about this. In August, Nyati asserted that if De Ruyter were still leading Eskom, he would be receiving a lot more praise than Marokane was getting.

"If André de Ruyter had done half of what Dan Marokane has done in Eskom, he would be called Mr Fix-it," he said.

"Instead, Dan's efforts are overlooked, attributing Eskom's turnaround to the private sector or a miracle. Bigotry continues to cloud the judgment of some people. What a shame."