Eskom’s departing head of legal and compliance doesn’t believe the state-owned utility’s former CEO brought the organisation into disrepute with the comments he made during a controversial TV interview in February.
The interview led to Andre De Ruyter’s swift departure instead of him serving an extended notice period until end-March. He resigned in December 2022.
Mel Govender, who will be leaving at the end of June, disagreed with the speedy “termination” of De Ruyter’s contract and questioned whether due process had been followed.
She also advised against legal action against De Ruyter — which is under consideration by Eskom — for the revelations he made in his book Truth to Power, which has been a best seller since its publication last month.
Govender was answering questions by members of parliament’s standing committee on public accounts during a meeting at Eskom’s head office at Megawatt Park on Tuesday.
At the end of the day’s proceedings, Eskom's acting chairperson Fathima Gany said the board rejected Govender’s view that De Ruyter's contract had been terminated. De Ruyter had offered to serve out his notice until end-February, which he did at home, and that was accepted by the board, she said.
Govender said she was concerned about the termination of De Ruyter’s contract and “how this would be perceived by the organisation. Would it take us several steps back in terms of the buy-in and support of employees in terms of using the whistle-blower hotline to report fraud and corruption?”
In his TV interview De Ruyter made allegations about ANC involvement in corruption. Govender told MPs that “it is not usual for a good chief executive to make statements against political parties and individuals in media briefings”.
Govender said she had conveyed her discomfort about the termination of De Ruyter’s contract with the executive team the day after it happened.
She said that the information that De Ruyter provided in his TV interview with eNCA about coal, electricity and cable theft and the existence of cartels in Mpumalanga wasn’t new. Though she agreed there had been a breach of process, she didn’t believe it brought Eskom into disrepute.
Govender also said it was common knowledge that De Ruyter was working on an investigation into criminality in Mpumalanga. The probe was mentioned at a board meeting in November and on several occasions at executive committee meetings, though no details were provided.
Govender said a group CEO launching an independent investigation wasn’t normal but not completely unusual, especially when there were sensitive and trust issues at play.
George Fivaz, whose company George Fivaz Forensic & Risk conducted the R50m investigation, has undertaken to give Eskom the report, which has also been requested from the Special Investigating Unit.
Regarding De Ruyter’s book, Govender said that instead of taking legal action against him, her view was that its contents as well as the revelations in the TV interview should be used to improve Eskom’s processes, protocols and governance in terms of the leakage of information.
However, she conceded that some of the information in the book on the proceedings of board meetings was questionable.
With regard to action taken by Eskom arising out of the Zondo report into state capture, Govender noted that no employees suspected of involvement in state capture were still at Eskom, 12 dossiers had been prepared for the declaration of directors as delinquent and 76 disciplinary cases had been instituted.
She said that all of Eskom’s suppliers who were mentioned in the report had been flagged on the company’s system for further work and cannot be given a contract without further investigation.
Questioned about her departure from Eskom after only 18 months and not having another job secured, Govender said the manner of De Ruyter’s termination was one of three reasons for leaving. Eskom was a “highly frustrating” environment to work in, characterised by internal inefficiencies and resistance to change. “To get movement at Eskom you have to push really hard,” she told MPs. She added she did not want to be put into a position where her integrity was brought into question.
Asked about the low levels of load-shedding over the past few weeks, Eskom acting group CEO Calib Cassim said the utility had been expecting a colder winter to date and maintenance was required in winter.
Over the past 12 to 18 months unplanned outages have been between 17,000MW and 18,500MW, Cassim said. Recent unplanned outages have been in the region of 15,000MW-16,000MW, which meant there was about 2,000MW-3000MW more power available than expected. The focus was to keep unplanned to outages at 15000MW or less.
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