Johannesburg - The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) intends to hold former CEO André de Ruyter accountable for commissioning a private intelligence report into Eskom without obtaining authorisation.
Law enforcement agencies, including head of the SIU, advocate Andy Mothibi, appeared before Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday to give an update on the report commissioned by the former CEO of Eskom.
George Fivaz Forensic & Risk was reported to be paid a R17.1 million grant to conduct the investigation, which was funded by Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA).
“When we looked at this matter, the investigation team had a clear focus and mandate to go and look at whether this investigation was authorised or not. And the authorisation was clearly from the board, which is the accounting authority of Eskom.
“So that part we could not find, in fact, it was stated that there was no authority for De Ruyter to have commissioned this kind of investigation. In fact, he did say that he needed to gather intelligence, amongst others,” said Mothibi.
He said this was an issue the SIU needed to raise because there were state entities like the State Security Agency (SSA) that were authorised to gather intelligence in the state.
“So as a CEO, we appreciate that he had been ready to act in the interests of the organisation, but there is a governance framework and rule of law that requires him to act within, and in this case, the investigation was not authorised,” Mothibi said.
“But what we said is that as unauthorised as we have found the investigation to be, the usefulness of the contents of the report cannot be ignored, because they are pointing us, the Hawks and SAPS, in a direction we could look at to enhance and take the investigation forward, because it does point to criminality that we are all concerned about; that the public is concerned about the sabotage that we are seeing at Eskom and all the theft around the coal, the fuel and some of the procurement processes.
“So we do understand that his intent could have been, yes, to assist in uncovering criminality, but there’s the governance part that we are also raising, that it needed to have done that appropriately, within the appropriate governance framework.”
Mothibi said it was important that state institutions’ CEOs, the accounting authorities and officers act within the prescribed frameworks, because there are national key points frameworks in government which require people who investigate or who do work in these institutions to be of utmost integrity and to be vetted accordingly.
“So we did say that to the extent that we found that it was unauthorised, we will then look at the legal framework, what actions could be taken, because remember, he is no longer with Eskom.
“The fact is that he is no longer with Eskom … has terminated his employer/employee relationship, but there are instances where there could be a legal basis to take action and our legal team will look at that. We will take legal counsel, and we did say that should there be a legal basis to act, we will definitely act and reach out to where he is,” Mothibi said.
De Ruyter left the power utility in February this year, after a TV interview with a broadcaster where he alleged that senior ANC politicians were involved in systematic sabotage and looting at Eskom based on information from the report.
De Ruyter did not just speak out in the interview, he also published a tell-all-book reflecting his tenure at the power utility.
According to reports, De Ruyter is currently working as a fellow at Yale University in the US.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse’s advocate Stefanie Fick, speaking in an interview with one of the broadcasters, said that if there was evidence against De Ruyter, then he should be prosecuted.
“If anything untoward happened, then obviously, the former CEO should be prosecuted for whatever criminal activity they have evidence for.
“I am just wondering if you sit where we sit, with the gist of the vast amount of corruption, is it really wrong to want to know what is going on and to assist maybe law enforcement to point you in the right direction?” said Fick.
The Star