'Bring Eskom crooks to book'

Two former Eskom executives have laid bare murky dealings and "strange meetings" initiated by ministerial advisers, on the second day of parliament's inquiry into the alleged capture of Eskom by the Guptas and their associates.

The first to spill the beans was former Eskom CEO Brian Dames, who told the committee how former board members meddled with the power utility's tender processes.

He was followed by former senior Eskom executive Ted Blom, who now works for the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, who called on the committee to "bring the crooks to book". Blom directly implicated President Jacob Zuma, saying he once promised to send a "fixer team" to deal with corruption at Eskom when Blom reported the issue to him.

Dames and Blom detailed interference by board members, movie-like death threats made from words cut out of newspapers, dodgy contracts, kickbacks and seven football fields of missing coal.

"I do think you're too late. You should have done this a long time ago," Dames said as he started his testimony. He was CEO for four years until March 2014.

He detailed how the board of Eskom, led by former chairman Zola Tsotsi, had interfered with procurement processes.

ANC MP and former finance minister Pravin Gordhan wanted to determine how things had gone wrong. He asked Dames to "connect the dots" between what he had seen during his tenure and what was happening in Eskom currently.

Dames said: "I think there were influences outside Eskom for specific purposes to specific individuals and it explains some of the behaviour."

He said he had a "strange" meeting with someone he believed to be a Gupta. Dames said he was asked by then minister of public enterprises Malusi Gigaba's adviser, Siyabonga Mahlangu, to "see some people" and went to a meeting at Sahara Computers in Midrand. Afterwards he told the adviser to "never bring these people to me again".

Dames said there were three procurement issues that were discussed in the meeting.

He said he had received a death threat after tendering his resignation in 2013, which was a letter left on his desk made up of words cut out of newspapers. He served out the remainder of his notice with three bodyguards attending to him at all times.

Blom detailed widespread corruption at Eskom, particularly in the area of coal contracts, during his time at the power utility.

He told how 400000t of coal - which would have covered seven football fields - disappeared from an Eskom power station
in 2007.

He spoke of a man driving around with R80000 in bribe money in brown envelopes and of a "culture of kickbacks" that developed and still persists in the organisation.