After 27 years of service, Eskom’s acting Chief Nuclear Officer, Riedewaan Bakadien, has announced his resignation, effective on 31 July 2022, and will be emigrating to serve in an “executive position” at a Canadian nuclear power producer.
As MyBroadBand reports, the embattled power utility revealed on Monday that Barkadien had informed Eskom of his resignation earlier this year and is now nearing the end of the notice period specified in his contract.
His role as Chief Nuclear Officer will be filled by Keith Featherstone, a long-standing nuclear executive with over 30 years of experience. Having previously served a management role at the Koeberg nuclear power station, he will act in the interim while Eskom looks for a permanent replacement.
In another change to the power utility’s workforce, current acting General Manager, Nomawetu Mtwebana will be joining the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) in Atlanta, for the next year as a reverse loanee.
Mtwebana will be departing shortly after the completion of the current outage of Unit 2 in July on a learning excursion to take up the position of a “peer reviewer” with WANO in the US.
Mtwebane will then bring her learning experience back to Koeberg, according to Eskom.
In her stead, long-standing Senior Manager, Mahesh Valaitham, will be taking on Mtwebane’s role as Koeberg’s General Manager in an acting capacity. He too holds over 27 years of nuclear plant experience.
Chief Operating Officer, Jan Oberholzer says: “I wish to assure the people of South Africa and fellow Guardians at Eskom that the organisation has access to a sufficiently experienced and competent executive team to continue ensuring a safe and smooth operation at Africa’s only nuclear power station.”
According to IT News Africa, South Africans have been forced to endure 73 days on and off of Eskom’s sustained bombardment of loadshedding since the beginning of the year. While the utility says it intends to lift loadshedding within the next ten days, it does not seem promising as there appears to be no permanent solution in sight.
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South Africa’s triple threat: loadshedding, petrol price, and electricity tariffs
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