The minister of public enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, has announced that Mpho Makwana has decided to step down from his position as Board Chairman and Non-Executive Director of Eskom.

It is unknown at this stage whether he will chair the power utility’s Annual General Meeting which is scheduled to take place on 31 October. Makwana was appointed only a year ago and is the shortest-serving chairperson of Eskom to date. It is understood that Makwana will be replaced by non-executive director Mteto Nyati. Nyati, who had previously served as CEO of Altron and of MTN South Africa, recently stepped down from the board of Nedbank due to “increased capacity constraints”.

While Gordhan did not explain why Makwana would leave Eskom so suddenly, Makwana said the matter had been “amicably settled”.

It appears however, that the relationship between Makwana and Gordhan was strained, to say the least, due to Gordhan’s rejection of Makwana’s recommendation of Dan Marokane as Eskom’s new CEO. Marokane is the power utility’s head of group capital.

News24 reports that a member of the utility’s Board had said that the relationship between Gordhan and Makwana had broken down and that “trust between Gordhan and several of the board members had collapsed following the CEO debacle”.