No amnesty for errant Eskom bosses, says Mabuza

NEWLY appointed Eskom chairperson Jabu Mabuza has pledged to ensure that its former executives found to have committed criminal acts are brought to book to prevent them from ever doing business with the power utility.

Responding to the announcement of Eskom’s results for the six months up to the end of September, Mabuza undertook to lay charges against executives suspected of criminality.

“We offer no amnesty… Where there are criminal charges to be laid, we will,” he said.

According to Mabuza, the practice of executives leaving state-owned entities under a cloud and then joining the same companies they facilitated dodgy deals for must end.

He said such executives cannot be allowed to sit on both sides…

“Either you’re with us, or on the other side dealing with us,” said Mabuza, who is also the chairperson of Telkom.

Mabuza confirmed that Eskom was investigating the R1 billion paid allegedly without a contract to global management consulting firm McKinsey, which is also the subject of a preservation order obtained by the National Prosecuting Authority’s Asset Forfeiture Unit.

He said the decision to pay McKinsey was dubious at face value.

Eskom executives told the new board appointed on January 19 that the power utility had sent the same letter of demand several times, but that the company insisted that it would pay back the money only if ordered to do so by a court of law.

Former acting Eskom boss Sean Maritz is also under fire from his successor, Phakamani Hadebe, for the letter he wrote informing McKinsey that its contract with the power utility was lawful, three days before the new board was appointed.

Mabuza warned: “If we find we have (done so), either by omission or commission, we will take disciplinary action.”

Maritz, who had until yesterday to state why he should not be suspended, is also in trouble for approving a R400 million payment to a Hong Kong bank, allegedly for assisting Eskom to secure a R25bn loan from China’s Huarong Energy Africa to build or refurbish power stations in 2017.

Hadebe said the R400m payment was a “devious transaction” and was part of many that the new board was investigating.

Mabuza said the new board, in its first week of working, had found that “very few things were normal at Eskom”.

He added that he found it strange that the previous Eskom board had its own lawyer, while the entity has a fullyfledged legal division.

Acting chief financial officer Calib Cassim said Eskom has reviewed 80% of the 160 contracts worth more than R1bn and that 5 110 of those contracts were below R1bn.

He pledged that the power utility was focused on ensuring that it broke even by the end of its current financial year in March.

According to Cassim, debt owed by municipalities, including interest, had increased from R9.2bn in September 2016 to R12.4bn in September last year.

He said that, in total, Eskom was owed more than R19.4bn in overdue debt, with Soweto alone accounting for more than R5.42bn.

Cassim pointed out that this was an increase of nearly R430m.