The management and board of power utility Eskom have the responsibility to take seriously the averments made by former CEO André de Ruyter earlier this year.
“Many of the averments made are not new to Eskom. Issues highlighted have been in several platforms on different occasions, maybe not packaged in the way it was,” said group executive for legal and compliance, Mel Govender.
Govender made the statement when she was briefing the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) during an oversight visit at Eskom’s headquarters. She told Scopa that Eskom had appointed an external legal firm to assist the entity to deal with the averments made by De Ruyter.
Outlining steps taken since that interview that saw De Ruyter’s contract terminated while serving notice, Govender said they first engaged with the former CEO and George Fivaz of the company that was commissioned to prepare an intelligence report into corruption at the entity.
“They have committed to provide us with a copy of the report. The report has been requested from the SIU, whom we believe have a copy of it.”
Govender told Scopa that Eskom's focus from a legal perspective was to recover losses through litigation, ensure consequence management to suppliers and employees and reinforce internal governance controls to manage some of the risks that had been highlighted, and where there were insufficient controls.
“That work is under way. It did take us a while to reach a point where we had an agreement into what the scope of work will look like. The team is working full force and I am overseeing the work at the moment,” she said.
Referring to claims by De Ruyter that Eskom lost R1 billion a month, Govender said the loss had not been consolidated, but it spoke to the theft of fuel, oil, electricity, cables, spares coal and others.
“Those are amounts and risks that I think the executive team and the board are aware of.”
Govender told Scopa that prior to the release of the Zondo Commission report, Eskom set up a task team to deal with the report once it was issued.
The team unpacked all the findings and recommendations and also looked at areas that needed civil litigation and criminal referrals made, and consequence management.
“Many of the findings and recommendations fell outside the scope of Eskom. You find criminal referrals and many of the civil litigation matters driven by the SIU or sitting with the National Prosecuting Authority,” she said, adding that their approach was to collaborate with law enforcement agencies.
Govender also said there were no employees involved in state capture as identified in the Zondo report in the employ of Eskom. However, the power utility had prepared 12 detailed dossiers for handover to the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) to institute delinquency applications against former board members.
“To date we have handed four of these matters to DPE and CIPC (Companies and Intellectual Property Commission) at the request of DPE, and we are awaiting feedback on those,” she said.
Govender also said no action was taken against suppliers involved in state capture that were mentioned in the Zondo Commission report.
“We would like the criminal process to run its course so that when we do take disciplinary action, any potential recovery from civil recovery follows the hierarchy of order.”
Govender indicated that all the suppliers mentioned in the Zondo Commission had been flagged on the Eskom system for further work.
“While we have not commenced with disciplinary action against these suppliers, they can’t be awarded new work without a detailed review taking place.”
Govender added that they had initiated a detailed review of policies and procedures, especially supply chain, fraud and corruption.
Cape Times