Former Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter. (Brenton Geach/Gallo Images)
Parliament’s watchdog standing committee on public accounts (Scopa)on Wednesday resolved to ask former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter to submit a sworn affidavit on the allegations of rampant corruption at the utility he made in the interview that saw his notice period cut short by a month.
This invitation could be the start of a parliamentary enquiry into Eskom, based on his suggestion that a senior ANC politician was involved in the graft, seemingly with the knowledge of cabinet ministers.
Scopa will then invite the Eskom board and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan to depose to affidavits in response to De Ruyter’s submission. Gordhan confirmed soon after the interview, aired almost a month ago, he was the unnamed minister whom De Ruyter informed of his concerns about the involvement of a high-ranking politician in mafia-style corruption crippling Eskom.
De Ruyter did not name the politician, citing libel concerns, but told eNCA the minister had turned to a colleague and said the information had been bound to emerge.
Despite confirming that De Ruyter had spoken to him about his suspicions, the minister said he could not remember whether he had made such a remark to a colleague.
If parliament were to launch a full-blown enquiry into corruption and sabotage at Eskom, this would come only five years after a similar endeavour by the portfolio committee on public enterprises. The 2018 enquiry was prompted by former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s “State of Capture” report, which exposed the links between Eskom executives and the Gupta family.
MPs heard how Brian Molefe, Anoj Singh and board members enabled the acquisition of the Optimum Coal Mine by the Guptas’ Tegeta Exploration, by advancing part of the purchase price in the guise of prepayment for coal. The Zondo commission would eventually term it “an act of state capture” and recommend that Singh and former chief executive Matshela Koko face prosecution.
Whether De Ruyter’s allegations form the subject of an enquiry by Scopa or an ad hoc committee is yet to be decided by way of a National Assembly vote, on a date still to be set.
The portfolio committee on public enterprises will also have to decide how to deal with a protected disclosure made by the suspended director general of public enterprises Kgathatso Tlhakudi on the fraught sale of South African Airways to the Takatso consortium.
The speaker solicited a legal opinion after Thlakudi made two protected disclosures to her and President Cyril Ramaphosa late last year, alleging that Gordhan irregularly disposed of the national carrier to the Takatso consortium.
The submissions were swiftly followed by a call from the Economic Freedom Fighters chief whip Floyd Shivambu for a full-scale enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the sale.
Chief parliamentary adviser Zuraya Adhikarie concluded that the committee “cannot ignore” the allegations. It had a constitutional obligation to put these to Gordhan before making an informed decision on whether to institute an enquiry.
“Whether an investigation is warranted or not is a matter which the committee will have to determine. However, no one can gainsay the fact that Mr Tlhakudi’s submission is very serious in that it is made by an accounting officer of a national department against the minister, and it deals with the disposal of a national asset — SAA — in an allegedly irregular manner.”
The committee has yet to discuss the legal opinion.
Tlhakudi filed his first protected disclosure on 27 October. He alleged that he was sidelined by Gordhan for challenging the wisdom of placing SAA in business rescue.
It was striking, he added, that his course of action was seemingly supported by ENSafrica, which provided legal advice to the airline at the time, but would later be appointed as the legal advisers to business rescue practitioners Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana.
Tlhakudi further alleged that Gordhan’s advisor at the time, Dipak Patel, “had been tasked to prime Mr Matuson for the opportunity”.
Similarly, he said, Gordhan made sure that Gidon Novick, the co-founder of Lift airline, would become part of the consortium that acquired a 51% stake in SAA. It was the minister who introduced Novick to Harith General Partners, who would eventually own 80% of the Takatso consortium, while Novick would represent minority shareholders. Novick resigned in November, saying Harith had been withholding information on key aspects of the deal.
Tlhakudi was suspended in June for allegedly interfering in a corrupt fashion with the appointment of a manager in the security department of the department of public enterprises. In early October, he lost a labour court bid to be allowed to return to work.
The court criticised him for raising matters not relevant to the relief sought and behaving in court in a manner not befitting the seniority of the position he held.
In his first protected disclosure, filed 10 days after the court setback, Tlhakudi said he had already made disclosures verbally months earlier when he conveyed his suspicions to the director general in the presidency, Phindile Baleni, as well as presidential adviser Bejani Chauke.
In his second submission, filed two days later in response to a request for clarity from the presidency, he said he had lost the record of his text messages when he got a new phone but could confirm that the conversations with Baleni and Chauke happened between 24 May and 2 June, the implication being that his subsequent suspension was unlawful in terms of the Protected Disclosures Act.
Tlhakudi said when the sale and purchase agreement (SPA) was signed in February last year, by an acting director general in his absence, the department incurred a commitment to place R900 million into an escrow account controlled by Takatso.
“These funds were not available, and a default situation had been created. I found it strange that the colleague had signed this SPA as this was in violation of the PFMA [Public Finance Management Act].”
Ideologically, he was opposed to selling SAA because he saw it as a template for privatisation, for the benefit of a few and to the detriment of the majority of South Africans.
“‘What was unfolding was exactly what Noam Chomsky had described: ‘That’s the standard technique of privatisation: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.’”