POLL | Are you surprised Steenhuisen identified Mabuza as implicated in Eskom corruption?

DA leader John Steenhuisen's claims that former deputy president David Mabuza had a hand in corruption at Eskom have drawn sharp debate.

The identity of a senior politician former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said was involved in criminality at the power utility has been the subject of speculation for weeks.

However, Steenhuisen told TimesLIVE the unnamed official was Mabuza.

He requested the establishment of an ad hoc committee to investigate corruption at Eskom, which was rejected by ANC members in parliament this week.

In a debate , Steenhuisen said the decision to block the investigation was to protect Mabuza.

“We all know who this person being referred to is. It’s Mr DD Mabuza and we all know how connected he is within the ANC, and we all know how terrified the ANC is of him (De Ruyter) releasing this information. That is the reality here today.

“The ANC is going to wait until he is safely in Russia, like it waited [for] the Guptas to be in Dubai and Mr (Angelo) Agrizzi to be in Italy, before this parliament does anything,” he said.

Several attempts to reach Mabuza failed, but his former head of office, Thami Ngwenya, described Steenhuisen’s allegations as “nonsense”.

While some were surprised by the DA leader's claims, others said they were not. It also saw a debate on corruption in the ANC resurface.  

In an explosive interview with eNCA’s Annika Larsen last month, De Ruyter said “there was one particular high-level politician” who was involved in criminality at the utility and that he had told a cabinet minister about it.

The minister “looked at a senior official and said, ‘I guess it was inevitable that it would come out anyway’.”

In an interview with Newzroom Afrika, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said De Ruyter spoke to him about a senior official allegedly benefiting from corruption at Eskom, but he dismissed it as “allusions”.

“Yes, he has made allusions about certain individuals, but it was precisely that, allusions. As far as the law is concerned, as far as my understanding of the law is concerned, I can't just arbitrarily point to someone and say that person is involved in whatever the suggestion is,” said Gordhan. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa said De Ruyter should have trusted law-enforcement agencies to investigate maleficence at Eskom.

“We were most concerned about his utterances and what immediately came to [my] mind was that André de Ruyter, being the person at the level of group chief executive officer, should have gone to any of our institutions with the information that he purports to have because those are institutions that are independent, where there won’t be any form of interference, diversion, blockage or even any form of subterfuge,” said Ramaphosa.

The ANC reportedly served De Ruyter with legal papers after he implicated the party in his interview, but secretary-general Fikile Mbalula rubbished claims this was to silence him.

“We can’t allow the image of the ANC to be battered,” he said.

“When you’ve got corruption, you report it to the Hawks. You don’t report to the minister. What do you want the minister to do about stealing?” he said.

“Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities informs De Ruyter to do exactly that.”