Andre de Ruyter is ‘duty-bound’ to report alleged corruption, says Mondli Gungubele

The cabinet has joined President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call to former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter to report serious allegations of malfeasance at Eskom to the police.  

“Our crime-fighting institutions stand ready to arrest and prosecute those who break the law,” said minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele on Thursday.  

The minister was briefing the media in Pretoria after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. He was responding to De Ruyter's explosive TV interview in which he disclosed the inner workings at Eskom and his time at the helm.

Gungubele said: “We call on anyone with information related to crime and corruption to report what they know to the relevant law enforcement authorities. All of us are duty-bound to fight corruption and to the prescripts of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, which requires people in ‘positions of authority’ in the public and private sectors to report all corrupt activities.” 

On Tuesday, Ramaphosa challenged De Ruyter to report the alleged corruption at the ailing power utility to law enforcement agencies. 

“We were most concerned about his utterances, and what immediately came to mind to me was that André de Ruyter, being the person at the level of group CEO, should have gone to any of our institutions with the information that he purports to have because those are institutions that are independent, where there won’t be any form of interference, diversion, blockage or even any form of subterfuge,” said Ramaphosa.

Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan has conceded that De Ruyter informed him about allegations of corruption at Eskom. 

Asked whether Gordhan reported this to the cabinet, Gungubele said: “The stance on the cabinet is that the allegations by former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter are called upon by every one of us to present facts so we can deal with that. There are institutions to deal with that, and even if those allegations he made to the minister of public enterprises are true, it doesn’t change that they finally have to be dealt with by the appropriate institutions. 

“To be honest with you, we take seriously what the CEO has raised, but we also argue that a CEO can do better because a CEO is put in a position of power empowered to deal with that information, unlike ordinary citizens. We want to argue that a CEO can do better in that position — a CEO who respects the fiduciary responsibilities that accompany the job — and we still believe that De Ruyter can go further and actually give us more information. 

“Dealing with individual politicians is neither here nor there,” Gungubele said. He added that a number of names had been spoken about in the media regarding the situation. 

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