It’s an election year, of course, said one friend who used to work for a state-owned enterprise amid social musings the other day over why the president bothered to declare an electricity state of disaster.
An election year? Look what happened in the Covid-19 state of disaster or that declared for the KwaZulu-Natal floods, replied the friend. In an election year the party needs money. A state of disaster allows procurement processes to be overridden and corrupt contracts to be more easily awarded.
It was a depressing lens with which to view the president’s ever more vain/frustrating efforts to be seen to be doing something about load-shedding. But it was the kind of lens with which those who have worked inside the public sector seem to view just about anything that goes down.
But, for a tall white guy with Buzz Lightyear looks who seems to have gone into Eskom in the confident belief he could save it, it wasn’t obvious at all that the power stations were the problem, or that politically connected Mafiosi were part of it.
Now, three years on, André de Ruyter has blown the lid off a toxic mix of crime, corruption and politics that is (allegedly) sabotaging operations at Eskom’s coal-fired power stations. With nothing to lose since he was soon to depart Eskom anyway, he told all in an astounding interview with eNCA’s Annika Larsen in which he described the power utility as a “feeding trough” for the governing party, and detailed the activities of criminal syndicates with political links stealing coal and diesel and attacking infrastructure, as well as dodgy contracts and procurement irregularities.
When it was then announced on Wednesday evening that De Ruyter would clear his desk at Megawatt Park with immediate effect, it was in stark counterpoint to the finance minister’s announcement just hours earlier of a R254bn debt relief package for Eskom. The package comes with a string of conditions that Eskom must comply with over the three years of the debt relief period. That we don’t know who will replace De Ruyter and be charged with implementing those conditions is one issue. But the more structural issue the interview raises is whether the main conditions are implementable at all — or even within Eskom’s control.
Take the consortium of international experts the Treasury will bring in to investigate the state of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations and advise which ones can be restored to their design specifications — some of which could then be concessioned to private operators. This is not the first time external experts have taken a look at these power stations, but this consortium, we are told, comprises internationals with extensive experience in the field.
No doubt they will try to puzzle out how much of it is bad maintenance and how much bad management; what could be done with more money and what needs more and better people. Perhaps they will look at whether, for example, the ash build-up that crashed a chimney at Kusile was the result of a design fault or neglect in clearing the ash that builds up in all coal-fired stations. But when they discover, as De Ruyter suggests they surely will, that some if not all of the power station failures are the result of deliberate action (or inaction) by people linked to criminal syndicates that may have political links, how will those technical experts advise?
The details De Ruyter revealed in the interview also put question marks over where the money will go: the Treasury has specified it can be used for interest on and repayments of the debt, but money is fungible, and if R1bn a month is being siphoned from power stations as De Ruyter says it is, the loan conditions are surely a risk.
It is unfortunate that De Ruyter’s rather gratuitous attacks on politicians’ Marxist rhetoric, and on party personalities who will know who they are, have made it so easy to accuse him of having a political agenda, and a right-wing one at that. That’s a pity because he has opened a Pandora’s box that needed to be opened, and it is really important that his account of what’s happening at Eskom be heard by SA’s political leaders, certainly those who genuinely want to see growth and investment.
It would be unfortunate too if instances of criminality and sabotage were to divert attention from the clear failures of operational management and leadership that have caused such a decline in performance at Eskom, and at other state-owned enterprises. There is a habit in the government of blaming its dysfunction on finances and governance and state capture, when management is the real problem.
But the stark picture De Ruyter painted of that intersection between criminality and vested interests is an even more fundamental problem. It is destroying SA’s infrastructure and eroding not just Eskom’s ability to supply power or Transnet’s ability to transport freight or fuel, but also municipalities’ ability to deliver water — or, in the private sector, mines and construction sites’ ability to operate. And several years after the Guptas left, it’s no good blaming it on state capture, however devastating its legacy.
Some criminal syndicates and corruption rackets are just the ordinary variety; others could be linked to the radical economic transformation faction out to ensure President Cyril Ramaphosa’s SA does not work. Or they could instead be linked to the current government in some shape or form and looking to public sector contracts that could provide a slice for politicians or the party, or simply seeking goodies in return for their loyalty. De Ruyter’s revelations offer a window on a world that is deeply disturbing, one that severely constrains SA’s ability to attract investment, growth and jobs.
It has never been clearer that to grow SA needs far stronger law enforcement and criminal intelligence, and of course, the political will to tackle crime and endemic corruption — as well as to take on the governing party’s own dysfunction.
Meanwhile, you have to wonder what the finance minister’s chances are of getting Eskom to clean up its act and comply with the conditions — and what he plans to do if it does not. And in an election year, how likely is a firm clampdown on corruption and criminality targeting public entities to happen, if what De Ruyter says about the intersection with party politics is true?
• Joffe is editor at large.
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