Hawks say De Ruyter only reported Eskom corruption to them on eve of his Scopa appearance
Cape Town - The Directorate Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) has told Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) that former Eskom group chief executive André de Ruyter only reported his suspicions of crime at the power utility to them on April 25 – the eve of his appearance before Parliament.
Hawks head Godfrey Lebeya was testifying at the start of an investigation by the committee into allegations made by De Ruyter, who appeared before the committee two weeks ago to provide clarification on remarks he made on sabotage and corruption at Eskom in a February television interview with eNCA.
Scopa wants to determine whether it should initiate an inquiry into the allegations made by De Ruyter in the days before he left office.
Two weeks ago the committee met to engage with De Ruyter on the subject of the allegations following a request from the committee for him to elaborate on the remarks he made during the controversial interview.
On Tuesday, the committee received presentations from the Hawks, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the SAPS on De Ruyter’s allegations.
Today the committee will meet the Eskom board and next Wednesday – May 17 – the committee will meet Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan. On May 23, it will meet national security adviser Dr Sydney Mufamadi.
During his engagement with Scopa two weeks ago, De Ruyter refused to name the politicians he alleged were responsible for the corruption within the utility.
Lebeya told Scopa of three investigations linked to De Ruyter.
He listed them as: the April 25 report De Ruyter submitted through his lawyers regarding corruption at Eskom, the day before his appearance at Scopa; the alleged poisoning incident and Mmusi Maimane’s case against De Ruyter over his alleged failure to report suspected corruption.
Lebeya testified that De Ruyter refused to meet the police after they approached him following his eNCA interview and instead referred the officers to his lawyers.
SAPS priority committee on energy security chairperson Peter Jacobs said: “We got 1 660 Eskom-related cases reported from April 1, 2022 until April 30, and 143 of these cases are still under investigation. We have made 103 arrests.”
SIU head advocate Andy Mothibi also said the SIU had no knowledge of Eskom’s private intelligence investigation into corruption until De Ruyter brought it up at his Scopa appearance on April 26.
“Why would Eskom put an investigating company when the allegations could have been referred to the SIU or Hawks or the State Security Agency?” Mothibi asked. He said the SIU wanted to know whether the report of the private investigating company was handed to Eskom or the accounting authority (the Eskom board).
He also wanted to know if the investigation itself was paid for by third parties, the identity of these third parties and whether the outcome would be acted upon and by whom.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za