As the political fog lifts a little, public enterprises minister Barbara Hogan has come out looking good.
After weeks of strife at Eskom, including the uninvited political intervention of President Jacob Zuma, it was Hogan's solution that saved the day: government upheld the Eskom board's decision to accept Jacob Maroga's resignation and the board was told that it alone was expected to govern.
This was the outcome that Hogan had tried to achieve from the start.
But in the weeks leading to this resolution, Hogan was the focus of political attacks and criticism from all directions. There was a call that she "should show leadership", by which was meant that she should override the board and reinstate Maroga, and other calls that she should "step down" because she lacked authority. Was it justified?
"I wasn't privy to discussions with the president, but that attempt to resolve the matter also failed" - BARBARA HOGAN
In an interview with the FM, Hogan said her motivation for being drawn into the saga in the first place was to avoid a protracted dispute and to reach an amicable settlement, something she had been advised to do by senior counsel.
But though "every avenue was pursued" - implying that a financial settlement was also offered - no agreement with Maroga could be reached.
This was where it could and should have ended. But just as chairman Bobby Godsell was making Maroga's resignation public (Godsell was about to address the media), he received an unexpected phone call from Hogan who asked him to delay his announcement.
It is now well known that this was because Zuma had decided to become personally involved. At the meeting with Godsell, which took place a few days later, "it had appeared that Zuma had agreed with everything Godsell said", says one of the former Eskom chairman's associates. Godsell was therefore stunned, says the associate, when he was called that evening with the suggestion that Maroga be "temporarily reinstated". It was this proposal - which Hogan says she believes was intended as a temporary measure to try to resolve the dispute, and not a forced rapprochement - that upset the apple cart and prompted Godsell to resign.
"I don't want to go into the details as I wasn't privy to discussions with the president, save to say that that attempt to resolve the matter also failed," she says.
After Zuma's disast rous intervention, it became clear that the only solution was the one that Hogan and her deputy, Enoch Godongwana, had initially proposed: it was the board of Eskom that needed to do the governing. Supported both by Zuma and the ANC, Hogan then made her statement to the national assembly.
By the time she spoke at the alliance summit last weekend - a meeting involving the ANC, SACP and Cosatu and at which some of Maroga's most vociferous defenders were present - there was no longer any dissent over the Eskom issue. It is now, as Godsell said in his final resignation statement, the "start of a new chapter". His decision not to return to Eskom, despite the strong support he has since had from government, is an indication of the damage that he must believe has been done to relationships by the debacle.
Hogan says Godsell would have been unequivocally supported, but that she can understand that, "because of the high temperatures reached at the time, he would have felt, as he said in his letter, it was time for a new chapter".
The new chapter is something Hogan will need to play a large part in writing. Even though her respect for corporate governance and due process carried the day, the notion that state-owned enterprises should be run by boards on commercial lines and corporate principles is a long way from being accepted in today's ANC. She has won the power play - now it's time for the real work.
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