De Ruyter to spill the beans on corruption at Eskom
Andre de Ruyter, the former chief executive officer of state-owned power utility Eskom who said the organization was riddled with corruption, has agreed to appear before the South African parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts and also present a written submission.
He will be asked about corruption, theft, maladministration, sabotage, lack of consequence management, cartels and other financial irregularities at Eskom, the committee said in an emailed statement.
A date for the meeting hasn’t been set yet.
De Ruyter said in a television interview in February that Eskom was losing about 1 billion rand ($55 million) a month due to corruption and theft, with the help of people linked to the ruling African National Congress.
A day later, Eskom announced that De Ruyter would leave the company with immediate effect.
Feeding trough
In an explosive interview with ENCA on 21 February, the former CEO, when asked whether he believes those in the ruling party ANC see Eskom as a “feeding tough”, he said that evidence would suggest that is the case.
“I expressed my concern to a senior government minister about attempts – in my view – to water down governance around the $8.5 billion US dollars that, by and large through Eskom intervention, we got at COP26.
“The response was essentially, ‘you know, you have to be pragmatic – in order to pursue the greater good, you have to enable some people to eat a little bit’. So yes, I think it (corruption) is entrenched,” said De Ruyter.
The former CEO’s comments caused an uproar within public and political spheres calling for more details. The ANC is now preparing to sue De Ruyter for defamation.
For the ANC to sue De Ruyter for defamation, the ruling party must first, deliver the summons to him; however, no one currently knows where he is.
Written with commentary from Bloomberg.