By Ntombi Mhlongo
South African state-owned power utility, Eskom, says it will respond to the recent book published by its former Group Chief Executive Officer, Andre de Ruyter making a litany of allegations.
The power utility issued a statement on Monday and said it had noted media reports based on the book and that it will review the contents and comprehensively respond at an appropriate time.
“We continue to focus on the task at hand to recover generation performance, reduce load-shedding, and turn the organisation around,” Eskom said in the statement.
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Recently, South African media houses including BusinessTech reported that de Ruyter had launched what it termed a surprise tell-all book about his time as head of Eskom, delving deeper into his claims of corruption at the embattled utility, as well as the political hands that have a firm grip on it.
The book follows an explosive interview the executive had with ENCA in February, where he accused the ANC of treating Eskom as a “feeding trough” and referred to at least two high-level politicians as being directly involved in corruption.
Last month, de Ruyter hogged the headlines after alleging that the power utility was losing at least E400 million a month through fraud and theft of prepaid electricity vouchers run by syndicates.
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He also presented an affidavit to the Parliament Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) where he stated that the dirt at Eskom was done through a variety of fraud and corruption including coal, fuel, and infrastructure theft plus the purchase of goods or services at inflated prices.
De Ruyter resigned from the struggling power utility in December. He then held a media briefing where he stated that he was disappointed as he failed to meet his objectives to turn the power utility around.