It’s politics, stupid — Eskom board, executives and Scopa knock heads over who knew what about private corruption probe

Parliament’s public spending watchdog, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), on Wednesday grappled with Eskom board chairperson Mpho Makwana’s sophistry that as nothing new had emerged from André de Ruyter’s “utterances”, nothing needed to be done by the board. 

But MPs across the party political divide questioned why the Eskom board at a special meeting after De Ruyter’s controversial e.tv interview agreed to let him go immediately, in effect cutting short his notice period by five weeks, rather than question him about his claims of high-level politicians’ involvement in organised crime that costs the debt-ridden power utility R1-billion a month. 

“You had an opportunity to ask your CEO to unpack all this, yet you just released him ... Was it not premature?” asked ANC MP Bheki Hadebe. 

DA MP Benedicta van Minnen talked of “a wilful ignorance” of what was reported. “You evade answering questions ... [to] hide behind the blanket of, ‘We didn’t get a report in our packs’.” 

As the Scopa chairperson, IFP MP Mkhuleko Hlengwa, put it, “You met with De Ruyter after his interview. Have you tested the allegations? Would it not have been of interest to you to find out where he got the information from?” 

No, said Makwana. “We had asked him to stay on for handovers, but in that period it became clear he was no longer interested in Eskom’s best interest.” 

Yet Makwana’s predecessor, Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, told Scopa that he and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan had been informed that a privately funded intelligence-driven investigation was necessary as Eskom was wracked with sabotage and corruption. 

“As a board, we were worried our crown was being destroyed when SAPS and Hawks were asleep,” added Makgoba. He said the slow pace of investigations and prosecutions was “almost lackadaisical in what needed to be done when Rome was burning”. 

The then board decided the investigation into sabotage and corruption was an operational matter left to De Ruyter, who continued to brief him, said Makgoba. “What the [current] board presented now doesn’t contradict what Mr De Ruyter said.” 

The controversy over De Ruyter’s statements has simmered on, not only because the ANC is suing him over his comments, but also because of the stubbornly heavy schedule of rolling blackouts that leave South Africans without electricity for up to 11 and a half hours daily. 

These rotational power cuts have upped the pressure on the governing ANC, whose dipping electoral performance cost it control of key cities including Johannesburg in 2016 and reduced its parliamentary majority in 2019. Lessening the intensity and frequency of the rolling blackouts has been a stated 2024 election priority of the party.  

“Load shedding was going to be the principle [argument] going into the elections to undermine the governing party. We’ll be able to resolve it. We are going to make that effort going into the future. Like I said, no amount of harassment will undermine our ability to resolve load shedding,” the electricity minister, Kgoshientsho Ramokgopa, told the National Council of Provinces in Tuesday’s Q&A session.  

Some notable absences

• Eskom’s human resources executive, Elsie Pule, who, according to Makwana, “in her full-time role as head of human capital, she’s right at the peak of wage negotiations”;


• The head of legal services, who was “bedridden”; and


• The recently appointed Eskom generation boss, Bheki Nxumalo, who previously held the post from 2019 to 2020, was still “finding his feet”.

A toxic mix