The African National Congress (ANC) played the race card to defend Eskom CE Jacob Maroga, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille said on Monday.

"Bobby Godsell was given a mandate to turn Eskom around.

"When he tried to address one of the biggest stumbling blocks to delivery - poor management of the utility - the ANC played the race card to defend their cadre," she said in a statement reacting to the resignation of Godsell, the Eskom board chairperson.

"Not once did the government consider the facts, weigh the evidence, or judge on the merits of the case," she said.

Zille said the power parastatal was failing to deliver on its mandate, subjecting citizens to large power price increases as a result of this failure.

This required the government to act decisively, but "instead it chose to fuel a tirade of racial rhetoric which resulted in the resignation of Bobby Godsell".

"... This had nothing to do with the ANC at all. It should have been a decision of Eskom's board.

"The fact that politicians overrode the board shows that the ANC is totally ignoring the boundaries between party and State," Zille said.

The "real story" behind Godsell's resignation would reveal "the full extent of the ANC's abuse of power", she said.

The Freedom Front Plus said that Godsell's departure would cost South Africa dearly.

The party said that the former Anglo American boss had the skills to turn around Eskom, whereas Maroga's "hopeless management" had cost the country R50-billion because he failed to heed warnings about the coal crisis.

"The resignation of Mr Bobby Godsell... is a wrong decision which is to the detriment of Eskom and the South African electricity consumers," the party said.

Godsell's decision to step down would hurt investor confidence and lead to job losses, the party said.

If reports that Godsell met with President Jacob Zuma on Sunday were true, "the conclusion can be drawn that there was political pressure on Mr. Godsell to resign", it added.

Zuma would have shown a lack of confidence in Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan's ability to handle Eskom's management crisis, and that he had bowed to pressure from the ANC Youth League, the Black Management Forum and the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa, who all defended Maroga.