Page 4 - AfrElec Week 09 2023

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec

Ex-CEO of power utility Eskom says

government meddling, entrenched

corruption made job impossible

Former CEO of South Africa utility Eskom says the amount of money that gets stolen
at Eskom every month is in the region of ZAR 1bn ($55mn)

SOUTH AFRICA FOR days now, the talk of South Africa has been president, to listen to the 54-minute interview.
the last interview Andrè de Ruyter gave as CEO
WHAT: of national power utility Eskom, in which he out- Systemic corruption
Andrè de Ruyter has lined rampant crime, theft and corruption at the De Ruyter said he knew about theft and fraud at
outlined rampant crime, struggling parastatal. Eskom when he first stepped into his new role
theft and corruption at In his February 21 interview with eNCA, de at the end of 2019 but had no idea of just how
the struggling parastatal Ruyter further accused the governing African systemic the corruption was, not only within the
in his last interview as National Congress (ANC) of political interfer- utility but also externally. “State capture was like
Eskom’s CEO. ence and entrenched corruption and warned the a cancer that was unsuccessfully treated and just
public to expect worse power outages, or load metastasised, and has now grown throughout
WHY: shedding, this winter. the entire body of organisation,” he said.
De Ruyter claimed that De Ruyter appeared calm as he talked about Everywhere there was resistance to imple-
government meddling, an attempt on his life in December, by cyanide menting controls, to conducting investigations
poor policy management poisoning, and described mafia-style operations and to enforcing disciplinary actions. “The rot
and entrenched within the heavily indebted state-owned enter- was much worse than I anticipated when I took
corruption among the prise (SOE). the job,” he said.
political elite had made Local media outlets have branded De According to De Ruyter’s rough estimate, the
his job to turnaround Ruyter’s interview “explosive”, “candid”, amount of money that gets stolen at Eskom every
Eskom impossible. “shocking”, “eye-opening”, “disturbing” and month is in the region of ZAR 1bn ($55mn).
“controversial”, while senior ANC members, “We have made some inroads,” he told eNCA’s
WHAT NEXT: including public enterprises minister Pravin Annika Larsen. “We have definitely started clos-
South Africa’s business Gordhan, have launched an attack on De ing the taps, and that does not make you any
community has expressed Ruyter, rebuking him for “meddling” in pol- friends.” The rot was much
concern about the itics instead on focusing on his job. Gordhan
bad impression of De called the interview “unfortunate” and said Political interference worse than I
Ruyter’s exit on investor De Ruyter should have kept his political views De Ruyter made clear during the interview that anticipated when
confidence. private. he believed government meddling, poor policy
At the same time, Wayne Duvenage, CEO of management and entrenched corruption among I took the job.
the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), the political elite had made his task impossible,
has commended De Ruyter for having the moral local media platform BusinessTech writes. Andrè de Ruyter
courage to speak out. He said De Ruyter was “a When asked whether he believed those in the Former CEO,
thorn in the side of many people” and his inter- ANC saw Eskom as a “feeding trough”, De Ruyter Eskom
view revelations were “damning” to the ruling said that the evidence would suggest it to be the
ANC party. case.
De Ruyter was “released from his position De Reuter alleged that there were attempts
with immediate effect” on February 22, the to water down governance around the $8.5bn
day after the interview, Eskom announced in a conditional loans from rich countries like the
statement. UK, Germany and the Netherlands allocated for
Duvenage said the government cannot helping South Africa with the transition from
ignore the situation. “If [President] Rama- coal to renewables. When he expressed his con-
phosa does not act decisively and get to the cern to a senior government minister about this,
bottom of the allegations, he is implicit and the response was that “in order to pursue the
he is part of the problem,” he told eNCA. He greater good, you have to enable some people to
also urged every South African, including the eat a little bit.”

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