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Zoom meetings, or any online meetings for that matter, are always fraught with danger.

It only takes one person who doesn’t quite understand the ‘mute’ button, or one person who fails to realise their video is still on, and the wheels quickly come off.

You’d think that the country’s national power utility may have ironed out the basics around online meetings by now, given that it’s been more than 150 days of our national lockdown (154, but who’s keeping count?), but you’d be wrong.

After one of parliament’s most important financial oversight committees called an urgent online meeting with Eskom, reports Bloomberg, things derailed almost immediately:

Eskom Holdings non-executive board members failed to log on, sending a text message to say they were tied up, and parliamentary staff forgot to invite Pravin Gordhan, the public enterprises minister, who oversees the utility…

“You had chaos from the board side, which made it a farce,” said Alf Lees, a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts for the main opposition Democratic Alliance.

Imagine scheduling an online meeting, and then forgetting to invite Pravin Gordhan, the Minister of Public Enterprises?

In addition, board member Pulane Molokwane joined late, along with another board member, saying she had been sent an incorrect link.

One of the reasons for the meeting was the discussion of a legal report into the conduct of Chief Operating Officer Jan Oberholzer.

There were also plans to discuss a second report, related to a multi-billion rand fuel oil supply contract.

Whilst Eskom group CEO Andre de Ruyter was present, along with a large management delegation, it was decided that the meeting could not go ahead without the board present.

Instead, the meeting was adjourned, with plans to try again next week.

Hey, it’s not the like the mess at Eskom is a priority or anything, so what are another seven days?

[source:bloomberg]