Former Eskom chief executive Andre De Ruyter. Photo: Supplied
Law enforcement agencies said on Tuesday that André de Ruyter may have breached his reporting duty in terms of anti-corruption laws, but he told the Mail & Guardian that he revealed more to the police than he did in the television interview that cut short his tenure at Eskom.
On Tuesday morning, the head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI, the Hawks), General Godfrey Lebeya, told parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) that the former Eskom chief executive was suspected of flouting section 34 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act (Precca), by failing to tell the police that ANC politicians could be involved in corruption at the power utility.
This section of the Act imposes a reporting duty on, among others, chief executives to report information, or reasonable suspicion of graft involving more than R100 000.
Lebeya stressed that failure to do so was “an offence” and claimed that De Ruyter never made such a submission until the day before his virtual appearance before the same committee on 26 April.
In its presentation to Scopa the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) likewise accused De Ruyter of withholding whatever information he had until the 11th hour.
But in an interview with the M&G via text on Tuesday evening, De Ruyter said this was not true.
“I have taken a number of steps regarding the alleged corruption, to report and cause same to be reported to law enforcement authorities and government officials on the highest level,” he said.
This included a meeting on 4 June 2022 at Megawatt Park with senior police officials, as well as national police commissioner Fannie Masemola and representatives of the State Security Agency, where he requested the help of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the SSA to investigate corruption and combat crime at Eskom.
“Following this meeting, a police brigadier (whose identity I leave to SAPS to disclose for reasons of security) was designated by General Masemola to be the liaison with the intelligence operation,” De Ruyter said.
He said not only had he given this officer all the information obtained by private investigators working under former police commissioner George Fivaz, but he also shared it with the Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s national security adviser, Sydney Mufamadi.
“This officer has had full access to all of the intelligence gathered and has stated to me that he has kept his line command informed. Additionally, since changes were made to the management of the Hawks in Mpumalanga, similar exchanges have been held with senior commanders in the province, and I am informed that all applicable information has been put at their disposal.”
De Ruyter added: “I also reported the matter to the then interim chair of Eskom Holdings SOC, Prof Malegapuru Makgoba. I also informed the new board of Eskom of the intelligence operation at a meeting held at the Eskom Academy of Learning in November 2022.”
De Ruyter said he had a meeting on 5 July 2022 with the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (Natjoints) at the police college in Pretoria where he shared his concerns about high-level corruption and theft at Eskom with Masemola and offered to make available the intelligence to designated individuals.
“On the same date, I reported the findings to the shareholder representative, Minister Pravin Gordhan, and to the national security adviser, Dr Sydney Mufamadi. The main findings were shared with the latter two officials.”
De Ruyter said he did not know whether either Gordhan or Mufamadi conveyed what he said to Ramaphosa, but noted that the president referenced intelligence gathering and resultant arrests in his State of the Nation address (Sona).
“‘The South African Police Service (SAPS) has established a dedicated team with senior leadership to deal with the pervasive corruption and theft at several power stations that has contributed to the poor performance of these stations. Intelligence-driven operations at Eskom-related sites have so far resulted in 43 arrests’,” he quoted from Ramaphosa’s Sona speech.
The fact that these arrests were carried out, and that a dedicated team was established to combat graft was “corroborative evidence that intelligence related to alleged corruption has been shared with law enforcement authorities and that they are acting on it”, De Ruyter said.
In the television interview, De Ruyter told Annika Larsen he had informed Gordhan that he believed a senior ANC politician had a hand in corruption at Eskom.
Asked by the M&G if this too had been communicated to the police, De Ruyter said: “The detail of the intelligence reports shared by Fivaz with SAPS (bearing in mind that DPCI is part of SAPS) significantly exceeds the Larsen detail.”
In that interview, Larsen asked him whether he would say the power utility served as a “feeding trough” for the ANC, and he replied that the evidence would support such a contention.
The ruling party is suing De Ruyter for defamation, arguing in papers filed to the Pretoria high court on 26 April, the same day he appeared before Scopa, that the statement was false and risked costing it votes in future elections.
The ANC is seeking an apology and a retraction, and has been granted permission to serve summons through edictal citation — which is applicable if the respondent is in a foreign jurisdiction — after telling the court that it had traced his whereabouts to Germany.
The party initially suggested it may also lay charges against De Ruyter for breach of section 34 of Precca but has not done so. De Ruyter said he had not been served papers for defamation, and could therefore not respond to questions about opposing such.
Regarding Lebeya’s claim that he may well have broken the law, De Ruyter said section 34 of Precca required those who were under a duty to report corruption to do so to any police official, and that he believed he had complied.
“It is interesting how the whistleblower becomes the accused,” he said. “I would argue that the national police commissioner and his delegated officers meet the definition of ‘any police official’.
“The fact that I sent a report to the Hawks to comply with the regulation is a formality. Also note that section 34 does not impose a time limit for reporting.”
A senior member of Scopa said on Wednesday it appeared that the submissions by Lebeya and the head of the SIU, Andy Mothibi, were part of ongoing efforts to discredit De Ruyter.
When De Ruyter appeared before the committee, he refused to identify the politician he suspected of involvement in corruption at Eskom or confirm that it was to Gordhan that he openly voiced his suspicion, saying: “I don’t think it will be appropriate for me to divulge the name of that minister, as it [shouldn’t] be construed as that person condoning it.”
News24 ran an article on that day suggesting that the reports produced by Fivaz were full of conspiracy theories and the investigator who had worked on these had a criminal past as an apartheid era operative.
Critics, in and outside the ANC, read the article by Jacques Pauw – and De Ruyter’s guarded refusal to name names – as an indication that he had no evidence to support the allegations in the interview.
De Ruyter told the M&G he found the timing of Pauw’s article “quite strange if intended as independent journalism”.
He again asked why, if the information gathered by private investigators was worthless, it had led to arrests, as the president said, and to the shutdown of 18 sites of coal theft, and the deployment of the army to power plants, and of specialist police units to Mpumalanga, which he had said was home to cartels raiding Eskom.
“If nothing was going on, why were all these steps taken?”
De Ruyter said Fivaz was his main contact in terms of the intelligence operation, and he had relied on him to use the best people he had in his employ, referring to Fivaz allegedly using an “apartheid operative” to conduct investigative work.
As the first national police commissioner appointed by Nelson Mandela, Fivaz had “significant reputation”, he said.
He said he did not at the time do a desktop search for information on Fivaz’s employees, as Pauw suggested he should have. “I did do a Google search subsequently. It did not reveal much.”
“I then did a Google search on Pauw, which was rather more informative.”
De Ruyter resigned from Eskom late last year. He was removed immediately after the interview, a month before the end of his three-month notice period.