In a shocking move, South Africa’s troubled power utility, Eskom, on Thursday said it had suspended its CEO, Tshediso Matona, to clear the way for an enquiry that will be underway at Eskom soon.

The probe, whose members will be selected in the next few days, will have full access to the CEO and other three suspended executives.

Eskom, which is responsible for powering Africa’s most developed economy, has been faced with some funding difficulties as it works towards expanding its reach with new power plants. It is also implementing power cuts to prevent any further harm on the grid. These include finance director, Tsholofelo Molefe, group capital executive, Dan Marokane, and technology and commercial executive Matshela Koko.

The probe is set to look at the poor performance of generation plants, hold ups in bringing the new generation plant on-stream, expensive primary energy and cash flow challenges.

“I believe this crisis and the suspensions at Eskom have everything to do with massive cost and time overruns at Medupi, Kusile and Ingula,” EE Publishers MD and energy expert Chris Yelland tweeted. “South Africans should brace for announcements by the Eskom board of massive further cost overruns at Medupi and Kusile in the days ahead.”

The enquiry is a fact-finding enquiry which will last a minimum of three months.

“If in the process of this fact-finding process we find that there is improper conduct, then we will have to address those things,” chairman Zola Tsotsi said. “But we are not setting out with that in mind.”

Zethembe Khoza, an Eskom non-executive board member, will stand as the acting interim chief executive, said Mr Tsotsi, while emphasizing that there was “nothing sinister” about the suspensions or the inquiry.

With additional reporting from Felicia Omari Ochelle