De Ruyter ‘economical with the truth’, says Enoch Godongwana

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana has slammed allegations by former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter in an interview that suggested the ANC and the government had entrenched a culture of self-enrichment regarding vital decisions concerning the embattled power utility.

Godongwana told parliamentarians on Thursday morning that De Ruyter was not completely truthful during his interview with eNCA, saying that in every instance the former CEO raised corruption or criminality issues before government leaders, they responded appropriately.

The minister was addressing a joint sitting of parliament’s standing committees on finance and appropriations and select committees on finance and appropriations on Thursday morning after the tabling of his 2023 Budget Review on Wednesday afternoon.

On Wednesday evening, eNCA broadcast an interview where De Ruyter made explosive allegations about the ANC government abetting self-enrichment at Eskom.

Soon afterwards, Eskom announced that the outgoing CEO, who was to leave at the end of March, would vacate his position with immediate effect.

When asked by eNCA journalist Annika Larsen if Eskom was “a feeding trough for the ANC”, De Ruyter responded: “I would say the evidence suggests that it is.

“I expressed my concern to a senior government minister about attempts, in my view, to water down governance about the $8.5bn that, by and large, through Eskom’s intervention, we got at COP26, and the response was essentially ‘you have to be pragmatic. To pursue the greater good, you have to enable some people to eat a little bit.’ So, yes, it is, I think, entrenched.”

Godongwana said: “In the criminal syndicates in Eskom, the CEO of Eskom is economic with the truth. When he raised these matters with the government, particularly in Mpumalanga, and an investigation found syndicates, the government set up a task team comprising law enforcement agencies and arrested a number of people as a result. So I find it difficult to take that.”

He said the R254bn debt relief that his budget proposes for Eskom will be met strict conditions.

“We have appointed a team which is going to do an assessment of Eskom’s operations from companies across the globe. To give us a better understanding, they will go from operation to operation across Eskom.”

The minister said the decision to provide debt relief was informed by Eskom’s need to resolve challenges related to power generation capacity, plant maintenance, and plant performance while the fiscus tackles the entity’s crippling debt.

“We need to clear Eskom’s balance sheet so that Eskom is able to do what they are supposed to do properly. In any event, many institutions have pencilled Eskom’s debt in as our debt, because it is guaranteed. So, we had to do that,” he said.

Godongwana said Eskom should be given the room to recover at a financial and operational level so it could address weaknesses in power transmission and power distribution.

Minister of public enterprises Pravin Gordhan also criticised De Ruyter’s allegations, accusing him of meddling in politics.

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