Business defends BLSA’s support for De Ruyter’s investigation
Business Leadership SA (BLSA) and Business Unity SA (Busa), which represent some of SA’s largest companies, have defended BLSA’s financial support for a controversial independent investigation into corruption, crime and sabotage at Eskom.
The investigation, initiated by former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter, has drawn criticism from various government quarters, including the State Security Agency and parliament, over its use of unvetted operatives who were allegedly given unrestricted access to sensitive information without following the correct protocols.
BLSA’s R18m in funding to support the intelligence operation came under scrutiny after News24 revealed that one of the people involved in the investigation was a known apartheid operative, Tony Oosthuizen.
BLSA CEO Busisiwe Mavuso told journalists on Thursday that while they were “shocked and dismayed” to learn of the reported use of “a discredited individual with a tainted history” to conduct the probe, they were still pleased that the investigative report led to some successes in uncovering and acting on crime at Eskom.
“I did not single-handedly approve the R18m that BLSA provided, that is way above my delegation of authority. This was not a unilateral decision on my side. The funding of this initiative was supported and approved by the BLSA leadership,” she said.
Busa, as a member of BLSA, also supported BLSA’s decision to fund the investigation.
“We believe that the support that BLSA gave to Eskom at the request of [De Ruyter] was the correct thing to do, but there are lessons to be learnt,” said Busa CEO Cas Coovadia.
He said Busa and BLSA had over the past few days met with a number of CEOs of the companies represented by these organisations to discuss this issue. “We didn’t have anyone who said we shouldn’t have done this,” Coovadia said.
The investigation, which was wholly privately funded, was initiated by De Ruyter and conducted by George Fivaz Forensic & Risk (GFFR), a company owned by former police commissioner George Fivaz.
It produced a trove of intelligence reports detailing the alleged involvement of criminal cartels, with links to high-ranking ANC members and state officials, in crime and corruption activities at Eskom.
These were among the claims De Ruyter made in an interview broadcast on e.tv on February 21. He also said that he had shared his suspicions with a minister.
Since the television interview De Ruyter has appeared before parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) to answer questions about these allegations. The ANC is also moving to sue De Ruyter for defamation over some of the claims made in that interview.
Mavuso said their support of the probe was on the understanding it would “augment and complement the efforts of law enforcement authorities to root out corruption and criminal activity at Eskom.
“We share the view of many that there is clearly a systemic problem of crime and corruption in Eskom and that it continues to be the ground zero for siphoning funds off the state.”
BLSA, she said, did not play any part in appointing GFFR.
“The appointment of a service provider by Eskom is not an anomaly. When we get involved in this way as BLSA, where we are enabling a capable state or working with a public institution, we don’t get involved in the appointment of service providers.”
According to a report BLSA received on the investigation from GFFR, the investigation yielded several successes. Citing the report, Mavuso said these successes, as described in the report, included “intelligencedriven operations at Eskomrelated sites [that] have so far resulted in 43 arrests”, also referred to by President Cyril
WE SHARE THE VIEW OF MANY THAT THERE IS … A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM OF CRIME AND CORRUPTION IN ESKOM
Busisiwe Mavuso CEO of BLSA
Ramaphosa in the state of the nation address in February.
There has also been, according to the report, disruption to certain coal supply syndicates and internal corruption at Eskom as a result of the probe.
“To simply dismiss the detailed intelligence gathering on the basis that one cog in the process has a racist and reactionary history is not logical or fair,” said Mavuso.
Coovadia said the report they had seen contained none of the “sensationalist stuff that has been shared in the public domain”.
“It was never our understanding that we were funding a piece of work that would lead to inconclusive proof that prosecutors could act on immediately and start charging people.
“It was always our understanding that the work we were asked to fund was to try to undercover some of the corruption and sabotage at Eskom, to begin to connect the dots about the way people were working, and make it available to the authorities to decide whether they want to act on it or not,” said Coovadia.