Eskom’s probe mystery
Damning report kept hush-hush
THE Eskom board has for two years been sitting on a damning report that cost millions of rand to produce and resulted in the loss of its three top executives, plunging the embattled company into a further leadership crisis that deepened load-shedding, which cost the economy billions.
The report has been kept in a vault since its completion in July 2015, fuelling suspicions of a cover-up of corruption by the utility’s leaders.
The secrecy around the report, which sources say is only accessible to some board members, raises the risk that Eskom is still being managed by the same people who are accused of corruption. Despite Eskom’s assertion to the contrary, there is no evidence of any measures being taken to strengthen governance and operational processes, leaving Eskom at risk of a return to the paralysis that cost taxpayers and the economy billions.
The fragile state in which the power utility has found itself since 2014 resulted in the government bailing Eskom out through a R23-billion cash injection and a R60-billion debt conversion to equity in 2015.
In a hastily arranged media briefing on a Monday morning in March 2015, then Eskom chairman Zola Tsotsi announced it had hired US multinational law firm Dentons to launch a fact-finding inquiry into the status of the business.
The brief was also to identify the reasons for rampant loadshedding and major delays in its infrastructure build that had sapped confidence in the economy and cost billions.
Since then, nothing has been heard of the investigation. And for almost two years, chairman Ben Ngubane has been playing fast and loose with the truth when asked about the probe, telling this correspondent on at least three occasions that the report into the probe had been handed to the public enterprises minister, and that the probe was completed and its recommendations implemented.
“We are using the report’s recommendations to fix what was wrong with Eskom,” he said in 2016.
Last week, however, it all caught up with him when Lynne Brown, the public enterprises minister, publicly contradicted Ngubane in his presence. Brown said the “report is inadequate for usage within the company” and that it needed further investigations because it had only lasted three months, which was not enough to do a thorough job.
Further fuelling the suspicions of a cover-up, Brown said “there are people’s names there and we don’t really want to do that”, when asked why the report had not been made public.
Multiple sources close to Eskom said those “names” were the very people running Eskom today, and that nothing had been done about the report, or to hold anybody accountable.
On Thursday Colin Cruywagen, the minister’s spokesman, said Brown would not be able to respond to questions as she was at the ANC’s lekgotla.
For the investigation to proceed, chief executive Tshediso Matona, who was appointed only four months prior, was suspended along with finance director Tsholo Molefe, group capital executive Dan Marokane and Matshela Koko, then group executive for technology and commercial.
The first three later resigned, while Koko was reinstated.
Koko is now the acting chief executive and is seen to be ahead in the race to replace Brian Molefe, who, in tears, resigned in November after being fingered by the public protector for alleged improper dealings with the Gupta family.
Asked about the status of the Dentons probe and whereabouts of the report, Eskom on Friday changed its tune yet again.
“Having robustly reviewed the report, the board found that there were no new issues that were revealed by the review,” said the state-owned electricity producer in a reply to questions. — TMG