EDITORIAL: Eskom is dirty as hell, even without the Fivaz report

Dirty tricks, malicious gossip and political infighting continue to bedevil efforts to root out corruption at Eskom. 

André de Ruyter’s appearance before parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) last week yielded little new, but it was nonetheless important for him to place the damning allegations on record before a crucial oversight body.

For example, De Ruyter confirmed that among the people he briefed about the corruption and sabotage at Eskom — sensationally, he included claims of the involvement of two cabinet ministers — were public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s security adviser, Sydney Mufamadi. 

The testimony was intriguing, given that Ramaphosa is on record as saying he does not know the identity of the two ministers, nor, indeed, does he intend to find out. This is hard to believe; it is difficult to imagine that Mufamadi or Gordhan would not have briefed the president on such crucial information, which has a direct impact on the country’s apex crisis — a stable electricity supply.

Yet, further revelations last week illustrated how toxic and factionalised the environment around the utility remains. If the ANC allows itself to be distracted by this, everyone stands to lose. 

First, on the morning of De Ruyter’s Scopa appearance, a News24 report emerged, detailing how the intelligence dossier which provided the former CEO with information on corruption at Eskom, commissioned from George Fivaz Forensic & Risk, was compiled by an apartheid-era spook and child killer with a penchant for dropping racial expletives.

News24 dubbed the forensic report a “dirty dossier”. It revealed that De Ruyter had received R50m in private funding for the probe — a fact which he confirmed, and which riled politicians. 

Parliament, Gordhan’s department and the State Security Agency were all concerned that the Fivaz probe could have posed a serious security risk to a key utility. And yet, it’s clear that police investigations into Eskom are largely stillborn.

But our political class is easily distracted, so it was no surprise that it leapt on the De Ruyter report to deflect attention from the real issue: the scant availability of any real blueprint for how to keep the lights on and the economy running.  

A few weeks ago, former president Thabo Mbeki chastised the ANC for failing to convene a parliamentary committee to probe the corruption at Eskom. (Even though, at the zenith of state capture, the ANC caucus in parliament did conduct just such a probe, headed by Gordhan.)

Said Mbeki: “It is, in all likelihood, quite correct that there are criminal cartels in Eskom, as well as acts of sabotage and corrupt interventions all directly connected to the activities of the counterrevolution.”

Whatever the failings of the Fivaz report, the fact remains that it’s not the only source of claims of corruption at Eskom.

For one thing, the utility’s largest trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), met Gordhan and briefed him about the extent of corruption at the entity, long before De Ruyter breathed a word on national television.

NUM told the FM at the time that De Ruyter was right about the extent of the problem. And certain facts are indisputable, including that Eskom paid R26 for a roll of single-ply toilet paper that should have cost R6, and that it bought a wooden mop for R200,000. 

The fracas around the Fivaz report shouldn’t distract the ANC from taking its head out of the sand. A thorough, transparent probe into all allegations of corruption and sabotage at Eskom is urgently needed — and one with a wider scope than Scopa has.