Between the chains Why no charges against thieves?

Let’s say a thief conspires with some of your most senior staff to steal almost R2bn from your business. You become aware of it and make all the necessary noise and demand that the money be paid back. You fire the thieves in your employ and lay charges against them.

Some concerned citizens and political opportunists rally to your defence and lay charges of theft against the corporate thief, both at home and in the thief’s home country. The authorities there happen to be less tolerant of thieving.

The corporate thief, in fancy tailored clothing and with smooth business-school talk, puts up a spirited defence, arguing what a great job he did to earn the money stolen from your business. Nothing helps, particularly as the corporate thief has a reputation for thieving. Long fingers, the Xhosas say.

Strangely, even as you negotiate for the return of your stolen money, you don’t lay charges against the main culprit, the corporate thief. The local police could not be bothered about charging thieves; they prefer pursuing charges against honest people.

Unbearable public pressure is brought to bear, severely damaging the brand and credibility of the corporate thief. In fear of prosecution back home, the corporate thief finally relents and pays back the money. All of it. But the corporate thief conveniently forgets to pay the interest he made on the loot. More negative publicity and shaming. Finally, exhausted, the corporate thief pays back the interest.

Armies of lawyers and PR consultants in the employ of the corporate thief keep reminding him to speak with confidence. To remind all that the thief is a force for good, who only wanted to serve humanity. By relieving poor people of the cash, apparently. And by giving them some pearls of wisdom.

Now that you have received half the cash back that was stolen, do you move on? And care nothing about pursuing the thieves?

That hypothetical scenario seems pretty similar to what happened at Eskom. There, a crime was committed against the company and, by extension, against the people of SA, as R1.6bn was stolen by executives from June 2016. The biggest beneficiary of that money was none other than McKinsey & Co, the global consultancy that walked away with almost R1bn.

At Eskom, a sham contract was drawn up to cover up the heist. This "top engineers programme" was such a spectacular failure that Eskom is now back to rolling blackouts, having failed to fix the logistics of getting coal to its power stations..

That McKinsey was shamed into returning the money does not undo the act of thieving. A crime appears to have been committed. Someone must answer for that.

Eskom will ask the high court next month to annul this "top engineers programme" that netted McKinsey the R1bn. This it will do so that the court can order Trillian Capital, the other part of this axis, to pay back the R600m it walked away with.

The one thing I cannot grasp is why Eskom’s management, led by Phakamani Hadebe since January, refuses to lay charges of theft, fraud and corruption against McKinsey.

It has done so for McKinsey’s partners on this case.