Names of corrupt Eskom officials handed to Minister Pravin Gordhan

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) wants a meeting with the new electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa (pictured) to reveal details of corruption within Eskom.

Speaking to eNCA, Malekutu Motubatse, the union’s highveld regional chairperson, said that NUM members approach the union’s leadership with information about corrupt people and managers in Eskom power stations.

NUM members know who is corrupt and know managers in Eskom who have private business interests.

“We have names and surnames. We gave comrade Pravin Gordhan the names and surnames of managers that we know are corrupt.”

NUM met with Gordhan earlier this year, but they were not given details about any action taken based on the information they provided.

Motubatse said that NUM wants to meet with Ramokgopa in the coming weeks to share their insights into Eskom corruption.

In response to a question asking whether NUM members are also implicated in corruption, Motubatse said, “We don’t want to be specific. It is Eskom employees who have their hands in the cookie jar”.

Motubatse said that corruption in Eskom is the main reason for the poor performance of the utility. “We are subject to load-shedding as a country because of corrupt activities at Eskom,” he said.

“Load-shedding can be done tomorrow if a minister will just listen,” he said.

Corruption crushing Eskom

Former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter also put significant blame for the trouble experienced by Eskom at the feet of corruption.

In his explosive interview on My Guest Tonight with Annika Larson, de Ruyter made many allegations about the corruption he experienced at Eskom.

Former Eskom generation executive Rhulani Mathebula also said the biggest problem the utility faces and which influences most challenges is fraud and corruption.

The impact of fraud and corruption is felt throughout the company and undermines any effort by the great engineers and other staff at Eskom.

The problems include people stealing coal and diesel, damaging plants to get maintenance contracts, and delivering the wrong spares and equipment.

Because of corruption and fraud, there are significant delays in awarding contracts and “shady service providers” who do very poor work are employed.

“Fraud and corruption are the biggest enemies of progress at Eskom. It is the most important issue to fix Eskom to get the maintenance program back on track,” Mathebula said.

Operational challenges to blame for load-shedding — Electricity minister

Ramokgopa said operational challenges at power stations are to blame for load-shedding and has downplayed the role of corruption in Eskom’s difficulties.

He dismissed De Ruyter and Mathebula’s warnings, saying corruption is not at the heart of Eskom’s operational troubles.

For instance, he said the challenges at the Kusile power station have “nothing to do with so-called corruption” but are technical.

“There’s 210MW in addition to improvements to the plant performance at Kriel that has nothing to do with corruption,” he added.

“There is 1,000MW you can get from Kendal yesterday that has nothing to do with corruption. It has everything to do with the fact that we can’t remain within the emission limits.”

On his tour of the power stations in the country, he emphasized that he is an engineer who is meeting with other engineers to solve Eskoms problems.

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This article was first published by Daily Investor and is republished with permission.

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