EDI Holdings was a state-owned company established by government on 1 July 2003 to project-manage the restructuring and rationalisation of the electricity distribution industry (EDI) from some 180 municipal and six Eskom electricity distributors into an end-state of six "wall-to-wall" regional electricity distributors (REDs) serving the whole of South Africa.
NERSA is a statutory body established through an act of parliament to make independent regulatory decisions in the electricity, piped-gas and petroleum pipeline industries, including making electricity price determinations following applications for price increases by Eskom.
Pending the arrival of Ms. Nzimande on 1 May 2011, NERSA's executive manager for corporate services, Nomalanga Sithole, has been appointed in an acting capacity to handle the administrative role normally performed by the CEO.
The position of CEO became vacant after the terms of office of all four full-time NERSA regulator members, Smunda Mokoena, Thembani Bukula, Ethel Teljeur and Dr. Rod Crompton, expired on 31 March 2011. However, while the terms of office of the other three regulator members have in the meantime been extended, Mr. Mokoena's has not.
The departure of Mr. Mokoena was not entirely unexpected after NERSA chairperson Cecilia Khuzwayo announced on 15 November 2010 that Mr. Mokoena had been suspended for "
alleged gross transgression of NERSA's code of conduct". This suspension was however lifted shortly thereafter and the CEO reinstated pending an investigation of the allegations by the office of the minister of energy.
At the time, the reinstatement was perhaps seen as a pragmatic measure to avoid inevitably damaging and expensive litigation, and to allow Mr. Mokoena to see out his employment contract, which had only a few months to run.
The decision by the cabinet to disband EDI Holdings has indicated a major shift in the longstanding policy of restructuring the EDI, a process that had been deadlocked almost from its conception in the early 1990s, and certainly since the establishment of EDI Holdings in July 2003.
The long delays and uncertainties in the restructuring and the end-state of the EDI have taken a heavy toll on both distributors and customers of electricity, as well as on the general economy, with the backlog in infrastructure maintenance and refurbishment in the electricity distribution sector now stated by the Department of Energy (DoE) as being in excess of R32-billion, and growing at a rate of R2,5-billion per year.
Before 1 April 2011, the issues facing the EDI included the politicisation by local government of the electricity distribution business, the fragmented and inefficient structure of the country's electricity distributors, severe human resource capacity constraints, the backlog in maintenance and refurbishment, and the funding model to address this.
With the demise of EDI Holdings and Phindile Nzimande taking up her new position as CEO of NERSA, these issues remain unchanged.
Brief CV of Phindile Nzimande Phindile Nzimande graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with BProc and LLB degrees. After serving her articles and some time in legal practice, she became a strategic management team advisor to the Gauteng MEC for housing and local government in 1994. She joined the Metropolitan Council of Johannesburg in 1996, and was appointed executive director of contract management for the City of Joburg in 2001. This position involved managing the relationship between the city and its utilities. In June 2003, Ms. Nzimande was appointed CEO of EDI Holdings.
