Energy24.01.2025

André de Ruyter has a new job

Former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has been appointed to the board of Verra, a non-profit based in Washington D.C. that certifies voluntary carbon offsets and administers the Verified Carbon Standard for certifying carbon credits.

De Ruyter’s appointment comes after he served as a senior fellow at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs in New Haven, Connecticut from September 2023 to July 2024.

Speculation that De Ruyter’s term at Yale was not extended emerged when his biography on Yale’s website was changed to the past tense, while the seven other senior fellows that joined that year remained present tense.

Verra confirmed this in a statement released in November announcing De Ruyter’s appointment, which also said he had already joined the organization’s board in August.

Yale senior fellows are leading practitioners in international affairs who teach courses, consult with students about career ambitions, enliven the conversation on campus, and conduct research emanating from their experiences.

For example, this year, former UK prime minister Theresa May and former New Jersey governor and U.S. presidential candidate Chris Christie joined the school as senior fellows.

De Ruyter was one of eight newcomers in 2023 who joined twelve returning fellows at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. In 2024, Yale welcomed nine new and fourteen returning senior fellows.

The former Eskom chief left the power utility with immediate effect in February 2023 after giving an explosive interview on eNCA where he accused the ANC of corruption and enrichment through Eskom.

He said there was knowledge and support of corruption at the highest levels of the ruling party and the government.

In May of that year, De Ruyter released a book, Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom, in which he exposed further details about corruption and incompetence at the power utility.

Following his departure from Eskom, De Ruyter left South Africa and lived in a secret location for several months.

He revealed that his decision to leave the country followed a warning that his life could be in danger because of his whistleblowing about the corruption at Eskom.

“I was made aware that I had reason to be careful. Rather than wait around to see if the intelligence had merit, I decided to be prudent,” he said.

Most recently, Eskom chairman Mteto Nyati said the utility’s board has yet to find any evidence of mafias following De Ruyter’s allegations at least four criminal organizations were looting the utility.

In its latest annual report, Eskom revealed that it appointed an independent legal firm to obtain the private intelligence dossiers resulting from De Ruyter’s investigation.

Eskom said it did not have access to the information gathered through a private investigation De Ruyter commissioned.

The legal firm’s investigation was also aimed at assisting the Eskom Board in addressing matters arising from allegations made in the dossiers and De Ruyter’s book.

“Despite the lack of evidence presented in the dossiers, the legal firm is consolidating the findings to aid in identifying matters for further investigation,” Eskom said.

The legal team also compared them to matters that were already subject to active investigations to optimise remediation efforts.

“We are cooperating with all external investigations and inquiries related to these matters,” Eskom said.

In a recent interview with the Centre for Development and Enterprise, Nyati said that while they didn’t find evidence of mafias looting Eskom, they did find evidence of corrupt individuals linked to external contractors.

“We have moved away from making generalisations about our staff as useless or corrupt,” he said. 

“Painting everybody with the same brush is just wrong. The majority of our employees are honest people.”

However, he said that stemming the tide of corruption is a critical priority for the board. 

“We have established a project management unit in the Office of the CEO to drive consequence management and collaborate with agencies such as the SIU and the police in investigating fraud and corruption,” said Nyati.

“We have gathered detailed data through artificial intelligence and related technologies to monitor and connect the dots, identify individuals involved in corruption, and create a clearer picture of what is happening.”

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