Parliament to investigate De Ruyter’s Eskom corruption claims – but the ANC is not keen
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) says it will form an oversight committee to investigate the explosive allegations of the maladministration of public funds at Eskom by its former chief executive officer, Andre de Ruyter.
Speaking to e-TV in February, De Ruyter made several serious allegations of entrenched corruption at Eskom, said to be orchestrated and perpetrated by high-ranking ANC officials.
Without naming any individuals, the former Eskom CEO said that government officials were deeply involved in corrupt activity at Eskom. When he took it up with a cabinet minister – later revealed to be Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan – nothing was done.
De Ruyter’s allegations were non-specific, but made it clear that the ANC was rooted in graft at the embattled power utility and was using the state-owned company as a “feeding trough”.
The ANC rejected and denied the allegations, calling for proof. The party has also launched legal action against De Ruyter and Eskom to have the comment retracted.
Despite the ANC’s vehement denial of the allegations, its appetite for further investigations by parliament into the matter is lacking.
During a parliamentary sitting this week, the party’s MPs rejected calls by opposition parties for an ad hoc committee to be established to investigate De Ruyter’s claims, saying that the respective portfolio committees for Mineral Resources and Energy and Public Enterprises can already do the job.
A vote on establishing the ad hoc committee will be held next week. As has been the case with several attempts to investigate matters of corruption before, it is anticipated that the ANC will use its current majority in parliament to shoot this down.
A Scopa continua
Despite the chances of a focused ad hoc committee being slim to nothing, Scopa said that there was unanimous agreement in the committee for further investigations into De Ruyter’s claims to take place.
“To this effect, it engaged the Parliamentary Legal Office to establish the constitutional basis and scope of such an investigation’s terms of reference. The legal office provided the committee with the broad parameters for the terms of reference for such an inquiry,” it said.
The committee said that it would wait until the vote on the ad hoc committee takes place so as not to run parallel processes. Scopa members said that the ad hoc committee would be the preferable route for this kind of investigation, due to the limited mandates of other channels.
The committee chairperson, Mkhuleko Hlengwa, maintained that regardless of establishing an ad hoc committee, Scopa “must not be in a default position should this committee not materialise.”
Scopa said that the mooted ad hoc committee should not deter its own investigation into allegations at the utility – as long as the investigation concentrates on issues that fall within the ambit of its constitutional mandate.
Scopa’s mandate is limited to financial oversight over Eskom.
The committee members agreed that De Ruyter must be invited to make a written submission on his allegations and should provide Scopa with information on his knowledge of the misuse of public funds at the utility.
The committee also wants to know whether he received instructions from any minister, board member or official to ignore the financial prescripts governing the use of public funds.
“Mr de Ruyter must also divulge his knowledge of any public representatives who benefited from these acts, as well as any additional record or evidence he has of financial irregularities at Eskom,” it said.
Any submissions to Scopa could be passed on to an ad hoc committee, should it be established.
The committee also wants to invite the Auditor-General, to determine if any misinformation or misrepresentation of facts are included in Eskom’s audit. It also wants to know if the commissioner of police has opened an investigation into the allegations.
Scopa also agreed that the minister, the board and executive personnel at Eskom should be invited to give their account of these allegations.
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