Corruption: The Tutuka power station in Standerton, Mpumalanga, is Eskom’s worst-performing plant. Photo: Deon Raath/Rapport/Gallo
Procurement corruption and blatant sabotage at Eskom’s worst-performing power plant, Tutuka in Mpumalanga, has gone “unpunished” by the state-owned entity’s management, despite there being a forensic report detailing the graft and destruction.
The Hawks have also confirmed that Captain Sam Kolobe is investigating the alleged sabotage and funnelling of lucrative contracts to well-connected companies belonging to current and former senior Eskom officials.
According to Eskom’s most recent state of the system briefing, Tutuka experienced the highest number of unplanned power failures between January and March this year, recording an average of 2 256 megawatts lost during that period.
In 2019, a company called Bizz Tracers was mandated by Eskom, at power station level, to investigate the repeated breakdowns at the plant. The report found that a current Tutuka manager allegedly orchestrated sabotage at the plant so that companies close to him would get contracts from Eskom.
The report says current and former managers allegedly stole cables and destroyed other components to receive repeat business and contracts at Tutuka.
Hawks spokesperson Captain Dineo Sekgotodi said: “The case is still under investigation, [and] the outcome of the investigation, with the decision of court, will determine who should be charged.”
But Bizz Tracers, the private security firm that conducted the investigation and compiled a report, said it had neither received an update from Eskom since 2020, nor met the Hawks’ Kolobe regarding any possible arrests or disciplinary action for the implicated person.
The Mail & Guardian has established that Nqoba Ukhanye Services, which the report alleges was also fronting, was central to the collusion and sabotage, and is still doing business with Eskom and Tutuka despite damning graft findings against it.
The report detailed a cabal at Tutuka where, in 2014, a five-year, R5.3-million maintenance contract was “illegally” given to Nqoba Ukhanye. The company is registered as a business that supplies and maintains computers and fax machines, but is doing the maintenance work given to another firm.
The report stated that two former senior Tutuka officials, Cleopatra Ndlovu and Albertus Steyn, registered a company in 2007 while they were still Eskom employees, and used a current manager at the plant, John Green, to carry out the alleged sabotage so as to feed maintenance contracts to the external entity.
“It is abundantly clear that these Eskom employees ensured that Nqoba Ukhanye became productive and secured its business within Eskom before they resigned as Eskom employees,” the report states.
Nqoba Ukhanya, according to the investigation, is fronted by using Ndlovu, a black woman, as the only director listed in the company’s certificate of incorporation “whereas there are other white males holding the sole shareholding of the company”.
The report adds that Nqoba Ukhanya used its “expert knowledge” in the functioning of Tutuka’s units “by creating problems, by deliberately tampering or vandalising some of the C&I [control and instrumentation] maintenance, which are not in stock in [Eskom’s] storage, in order to be summoned by the maintenance department for the repairs thereof”.
Ndlovu, the owner of Nqoba Ukhanye, said she was aware of the allegations of corruption but had not seen the forensic report and was still doing business with Eskom.
“I don’t know who was fighting who; it is just that my company is an engineering company and it had a lot of white people specialists. I think that it is easy to say: ‘As a black woman, how can she own a company and employ whites?’
“I think I’m one of a very few [black] people to employ white people. I’m an engineer by profession and I run an engineering business.”
She did not answer allegations about her “unlawfully” working with Tutuka’s service manager, Green, as part of an alleged sabotage cabal, saying: “I’m not sure who [did this to me] or why this happened to me.”
Ndlovu added: “I’m just a female, working hard and proving myself in the male-dominated field of engineering. The rest, only God knows.”
The report found that Steyn, who is listed as Nqoba Ukhanye’s technician, worked with Green to “unlawfully” steer contracts to Nqoba Ukhanye and his company, Albertus Steyn Instrumentation, after Green had “solicited contracts from other service providers in order to assist the [two companies] in acquiring the work”.
“It has been further discovered that this unlawful modus operandi was historical and habitual between John Green and Albertus Steyn, which behaviour encourages the sabotage at [Tutuka],” the report states.
But Steyn refuted these claims, saying he knew about the investigation, and he would “love to see the report”.
“There was no fraud or sabotage committed between the parties that you mentioned, according to my knowledge,” Steyn said.
Green did not respond to calls and questions sent in text messages from the M&G.
Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said the state-owned company’s head office had no knowledge of the report, which was done by a private security company, adding that the investigation was done without the knowledge or consent of the relevant functions at head office, including procurement.
“Eskom only ever received verbal feedback from the then-Tutuka power station manager on 1 June 2021, in which he confirmed to head office that matters [the security company] had investigated and made findings and recommendations on were acted upon and that implicated individuals had been disciplined and that criminal cases had been laid with the police. To date, the said power station manager has never provided Eskom with any detail or proof thereof.”
Mantshantsha added that Tutuka’s station manager had been suspended and was undergoing a disciplinary hearing, so Eskom could not “obtain any further information from him”.
“The current management at the power station has no knowledge of the said matters, including the report, as there was no handover.
“Eskom is not in a position to assist with any response to your questions as there is no report for us to work from,” Mantshantsha said.
He referred the M&G to Eskom statements related to sabotage at Tutuka, including one on 19 May that said there had been five vandalism incidents at the power station since March last year.
The alleged lack of action related to sabotage at Tutuka comes on the back of the station, which Eskom started building in 1985, being the state entity’s worst-performing plant.
Eskom’s system report found that Tutuka was the main culprit for electricity trips in 2021, which was also the worst year for load-shedding on record.
Last year, Eskom’s ageing coal fleet recorded 511 trips, which is about 43 a month. The Tutuka, Medupi, Kriel and Duvha power stations accounted for about 51% of those trips.
According to Eskom, there has been no significant improvement in Tutuka’s performance. In response to questions from the M&G, the utility blamed the degradation of the plant, as well as years of poor processes, fraud and corruption, for this.
These factors, Eskom said, “cannot be turned around overnight”.
The 20 employees who allegedly contributed to Tutuka’s poor performance have been removed from the plant “and the new power station manager is updating systems, improving the culture and weeding out corrupt elements”, Eskom said.
Bizz Tracers’ investigator, Calvin Rafadi, confirmed that he had compiled the report, and that he was also the complainant who had contacted the Mpumalanga Hawks about all Tutuka sabotage cases in 2018 and 2019.
“During our due diligence investigation at the Tutuka station, we realised that even cable theft syndicates hide in the station and peel off the [Eskom logos on the cables] through the night and into the morning, and we recommended dog patrols. However, no one has acted on our plan to date,” Rafadi said.
Bizz Tracers is however involved in litigation with Eskom on a separate contract.
Rafadi recommended that all managers “be submitted to lifestyle audits because some have security companies with vast interests in Eskom’s challenges, while others have business interests, such as transportation entities, and sometimes influence some striking workers at the main gates for coal not to enter and, therefore, no production”.
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