Eskom battles thieves, corrupt employees and increased damage to equipment

ESKOM says there has been a significant increase in damage to vital infrastructure, including breakers and cables, as a result of the frequent disruption to the grid caused by load shedding and that this has added a further burden to its maintenance backlog.

Briefing the media yesterday, group executive for distribution Monde Bala said although there had not been a noticeable spike in damage to transformers, there had been “significant increase in other equipment, including breakers and cables“.

This comes amid frequent reports of transformer damage in various parts of the country, believed to be the result of power surges after the outages.

Eskom also conceded there has been an increase in the number of incidents of fraud and corruption by contractors and its own employees, particularly in Mpumalanga, relating to the theft of coal and damage to infrastructure.

Outgoing chief executive André de Ruyter said that to date Eskom had issued letters to 15 contractors whom the utility was convinced had transgressed the utility’s rules pertaining to theft and corruption.

“We have issued 15 letters to company directors whom we are convinced were guilty of transgression.

“There are 230 cases that the supply committee is dealing with regarding incidents of theft, fraud or corruption,” he said.

Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said taking action against contractors suspected of crimes was not straightforward as the utility had to determine the guilt or otherwise of the companies before such action could be taken.

De Ruyter said the onslaught on Eskom infrastructure had abated somewhat with the involvement of the SA Police Service (SAPS), Crime Intelligence and the SA National Defence Force (SANDF).

“We are not as vulnerable as we have been before. There is a lot being done by the SAPS and defence force, as well as other security measures,” he said.

De Ruyter said although there had been some successes in dealing with theft, crime, corruption and damage to infrastructure, Eskom still looked forward to netting the upper echelons of the syndicates that were involved, pointing out that at present it was mostly foot soldiers who had been nabbed, but that work was ongoing to arrest the masterminds.

Eskom confirmed as well that while the SANDF did not have a mandate to make arrests, it had turned over about 48 cases to the SAPS, particularly in Mpumalanga.

De Ruyter further confirmed there were numerous internal cases of corruption that Eskom had unearthed, which had been referred to the Sandton Police for further investigation.

“We are going after all the employees of Eskom that we suspect of involvement in corruption. Some of them unfortunately resigned while we were still making disciplinary enquiries.

“We have handed a list … to the police, though we have not had feedback as yet from them. We did inform Parliament (Scopa),” he said.

He said collaboration with the Special Investigating Unit had paid dividends, including the nabbing of an employee who had amassed about R724.5 million of assets from the utility through corruption.

This had now been turned over to the State for the assets to be sold, whereafter the proceeds would revert to Eskom’s coffers.