Scopa met with the National Security Advisor to the President, Dr Sydney Mufamadi, to hear about his response to the allegations made by former Eskom CEO, Mr Andre de Ruyter about the involvement of high-ranking government ministers in a corrupt cartel that Mr de Ruyter claims is responsible for crippling Eskom’s energy generation capacity. Mr de Ruyter met with Dr Mufamadi and the Minister of Public Enterprises, Mr Pravin Gordhan and shared a privately funded report with them on an investigation into these allegations.
SCOPA wanted clarity on several issues, including why Dr Mufamadi was present in that meeting, the nature of the report presented to them, which ministers were named in the report and any possible concerns around the fact that the report was funded by private donors.
Dr Mufamadi said he was invited to attend the meeting by Mr Gordhan. On hearing the allegations, he duly advised the Eskom CEO to report these matters to the law enforcement agencies to conduct a thorough investigation and to get to the bottom of this matter. “I told him should they need the President’s assistance in this regard they should tell me, and such support will be forthcoming.”
In reply to a question from SCOPA on whether this advice was followed, Dr Mufamadi said: “I spoke to the National Commissioner of Police about what I heard, and it turned out that the police were on the curve of the alleged acts of criminality raised in the report in Mpumalanga power stations and they were being investigated.”
SCOPA committee members also wanted to know if he had been expected to raise these matters with the President. He answered: “If that was what was hoped by the former Eskom CEO, it was not expressed to me … It wouldn’t be advisable to report allegations to the President. It would be better to report facts that have been investigated by competent agencies and have found them to be such before we could do so.” He further claimed that contrary to popular opinion, he was never presented with a fully-fledged report with concrete findings and recommendations.
He explained that he was instead “given a flavour of the report” and there was nothing to take away from it as a fact because the issues were presented as allegations needing to be verified through investigation. “Hence, I recommended that it be handed over to law enforcement agencies.” He further reiterated that he had never seen, nor had he been taken through a report, as is commonly supposed by many.
When asked if he was concerned that the report was funded by private donors, he said he was not aware that it was funded by private donors. “I got wind of that through the media like everyone else,” he claimed.
As to the identity of the ministers identified in the report, Dr Mufamadi said: “When names are mentioned, I advised that the CEO should interact with law enforcement agencies for investigation and verification … It would not be justified to do so when these allegations have not been thoroughly investigated.”
The Chairperson of the committee, Mr Mkhuleko Hlengwa, pressed Dr Mufamadi on whether he should not have informed the President about the allegations made by Mr de Ruyter. However, Dr Mufamadi confirmed that he would not take mere unconfirmed allegations to the President.
Mr Hlengwa then asked if he did not have a responsibility to check up on the progress of investigations into the allegations. Dr Mufamadi replied by saying that it is not his responsibility to check up on the progress of any such investigation.
Mr Hlengwa thanked Dr Mufamadi for providing clarity on certain issues that were not clear to the committee. He also mentioned that the committee will ask the Parliamentary Legal Services to write to the former Eskom CEO to solicit the report that provided the basis of these allegations. “Unless our enquiries on this matter are based on solid ground of a report, we would be discussing it a theatre of speculations that are not tested.” As such, “We will engage the former Eskom CEO and he will engage us about its due process and how it came about.”
Abel Mputing
29 May 2023
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