De Ruyter claims not new and misleading, Makwana tells Scopa
Eskom board chair Mpho Makwana has told parliamentarians that following the airing of the interview in which the utility’s now former CEO made damning claims, they asked an internal task team into state capture and corruption to look into whether there were new claims that had been cited.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) is on Wednesday questioning Eskom’s board over allegations of graft, theft, maladministration, and sabotage at the utility.
The board is appearing before the committee as part of lawmakers’ efforts to get clarity on the extent to which authorities were privy to the allegations made by Eskom’s former CEO, and what actions were taken to address the alleged misuse of public funds.
“In that conversation, he acknowledged that the interview did take place. In his own words, he said that if the board was of the view that his utterances had caused embarrassment to Eskom then he would be agreeable to a variation of the terms of his then notice period which was 31 March 2023, after we had extended the end of service period from 28 February 2023,” Makwana said.
De Ruyter resigned in December 2022, just days after reports of an alleged poisoning attempt emerged.
He was expected to stay on as CEO until the end of March 2023, but Makwana said when they met in February to discuss the ramifications of the utterances made by the then-outgoing CEO, they decided to release from this notice obligation.
“The board arrived at the view that some of the utterances that he made had brought the company into disrepute and therefore resolved to agree to the variation of his notice period to the original 28 February 2023.
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“The board further resolved to release him forthwith from his obligation to serve the remainder of his notice period at that time and released him with immediate effect.”
Makwana said the conclusion that De Ruyter had brought Eskom into disrepute was informed by the fact that his statements were misleading to the public.
He said the claims were not new and had been recorded in a report by the State Capture task team which had been established based on the findings of the State Capture Commission of Inquiry.
“A good number of the allegations that were tabled misled the public as if they were new developments that had been shared with the board; that was not the case. Secondly, it would have misled the public in indicating as if there was no action taken internally by the board and all concerned.”
Makwana said in addition to asking the task team to look into whether there were any new claims of maleficence, they were in the process of procuring the services of an independent legal panel to revisit previous internal probes to look at what else the board could do to execute its fiduciary duties and responsibilities.
