Pravin Gordhan denies approving De Ruyter's intelligence operation

Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan has denied claims by former Eskom interim board chair Prof Malegapuru Makgoba that he gave then-Eskom CEO André de Ruyter approval to initiate a private intelligence operation to probe corruption at the entity.

Referring to the operation as “a problematic R50m project”, Gordhan said he heard about it in passing six months after De Ruyter initiated it. The former CEO never asked for his approval to conduct intelligence gathering, he said.

Contrary to what Makgoba said a week ago, Gordhan told parliament's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) he received information only about a specific incident involving a cable that was cut at one power station.

Gordhan said he responded to the information by asking: “Can we get more information, who is responsible for that area, how could a thick cable like that be cut to sabotage a particular part of a power station and cause a unit or two to fail?”

This did not mean “go around and do the job of the South African intelligence services”.

“I refute what Prof Makgoba was saying. With great respect to him, he’s got it absolutely wrong. In that sense, Prof Makgoba is misleading and misinforming Scopa and the public as well.

“As far as the De Ruyter project is concerned, he did not discuss the project with me at any length. He merely, in passing, said: 'I am doing this because the law-enforcement guys are not coming to the party and I am not using Eskom money. I am raising the money privately and I have told the chair about it.' What he told the chair, I don’t know,” said Gordhan.

He added that he discovered recently the project started in January 2022 and the interaction he had with De Ruyter happened around late June or July that year.

“So he was operating on his own free will on this project and of course, at the same time, it seems he was writing a book as well, rather than focusing on his job of keeping the power stations going and providing electricity to South Africa.

“For six months I didn’t know anything about this project, nor did I know the details of what he was up to.”

Gordhan seemed to agree with De Ruyter about the link between corruption, sabotage and load-shedding, though one could not say these factors were entirely responsible, he said.

“There are a variety of other factors. Corruption plays a big part in what we are seeing today, both corruption in the past and corruption that is taking place at present.”

While denying Eskom was a feeding trough for the ANC, as De Ruyter alleged, Gordhan acknowledged there were instances where one could not deny the link between institutions such Chancellor House and certain projects that were undertaken. Chancellor House Holdings is the investment arm of the ANC.

But Gordhan also pointed a finger at multinational institutions such as ABB, SAP, local construction companies and those like Trillian that had fed off the Eskom situation.

“There certainly needs to be a separation between the state and the party, and hopefully we will move in that direction in coming years,” he said.

Criticising De Ruyter, Gordhan said instead of ascribing problems to a political organisation, a CEO should have done his bit to ensure corruption on the scale De Ruyter found did not continue.

Makgoba told Scopa last week that he was informed an intelligence operation was under way at Eskom and “I think the minister of public enterprises was the one who brought this matter because Eskom was besieged, and he said to André [de Ruyter], you have to gather some intelligence somehow”.

“He didn’t say it must be done in the manner André did, but he said we needed to gather some intelligence,” said Makgoba at the time.

Law-enforcement agencies and the entity’s board and executive managers have distanced themselves from the matter, saying not only were they unaware of the investigation but had seen no outcomes.  

De Ruyter told Scopa last month that Eskom had not only contracted private security to investigate coal theft and tampering, but overt and covert surveillance and intelligence gathering had been established.

He said as a result of an intelligence-led operation, significant information had been gathered on the extent of organised crime at Eskom, particularly in Mpumalanga.

“The findings of this investigation have been extensively shared with senior officers in the SAPS, in compliance with reporting obligations, and co-operation with the SAPS is continuing,” De Ruyter said.

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