Durban – Calls are growing for the police to probe whether breakdowns are deliberately being planned at various Eskom power stations. The breakdowns ultimately lead to load shedding.
The police are investigating claims that a senior executive at the power utility, with top-secret security clearance, allegedly appointed engineers to help ensure that there were breakdowns at certain power stations.
The allegations, which were reported in a Sunday newspaper, relate to the executive and the engineers allegedly colluding and then profiting from the repair of the breakdowns.
Last year, former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said the sabotage of Eskom equipment, and coal syndicates, were among the criminal activities that were adding to the load-shedding crisis. He said mysterious failures had been reported during the rolling blackouts.
“The issue is quite pervasive and very serious. We had an incident where an unknown person tried to cut through a conveyor belt that feeds coal into the boilers, which would have led to significant disruption. We do have mysterious failures, oil leakages and equipment knocked out. So, this is a serious problem and it is quite wide-ranging,” he said at the time.
De Ruyter in another interview said that the governing party treated Eskom as a feeding trough, and he also said that a certain minister was behind the looting at Eskom.
Build One South Africa movement leader Mmusi Maimane said that claims of sabotage at Eskom were so serious that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) must probe them.
In February, Maimane laid a criminal complaint at Cape Town police station to compel the authorities to get De Ruyter to share the details of allegations he made against senior ministers and others allegedly privy to the corruption at the state power utility.
The Hawks are now investigating this complaint.
“The greatest obstacle to resolving the issues with Eskom lies between Police Minister Bheki Cele and President Cyril Ramaphosa. The president could easily have asked the SIU to look into all these allegations,” Maimane said.
He added that the police’s Crime Intelligence Unit should already be aware of the allegations involving Eskom employees, and should have made progress with investigations.
Eskom said it took the allegations seriously and would allow the law to take its course.
“Eskom is committed to rooting out fraud, corruption and sabotage within its ranks, and will fully co-operate with law enforcement to ensure the most effective and co-ordinated responses to any crime related to Eskom’s operations,” it said.
DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia said that if there was a case to answer then he could not understand why those linked with allegations of sabotage had not been suspended.
“How do you keep people who are alleged to have been sabotaging and damaging any national asset, how do you keep them in the belly of the beast? They need to be completely and utterly sidelined until the investigation is over, otherwise they will do more damage, and we do not need more damage done to Eskom.”
Cachalia said the vetting of Eskom employees was poor.
“Information presented to Eskom and the Hawks shows that vetting has been extremely tardy. But now we have something at a very high level that needs to be acted on, and I cannot understand why there isn’t immediate reaction.
“We have been told these sabotages have been sanctioned by people in high places to break certain units of Eskom so that others can be called in to fix what has been broken.
“As a result, when a number of units are out of action, we have various stages added to load shedding.”
The SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) has called for the arrest of the Eskom executive suspected of sabotaging power stations.
Saftu said the assets of those implicated should be attached to recoup losses.
The union’s national spokesperson, Trevor Shaku, said the police should treat the matter with urgency so that those implicated could be arrested.
“The problems that have come out of the sabotage that is alleged to have happened – we must be quick to stop that.
“We do not think it would be one person because of the many reports of acts of sabotage in the past.
“It means there are probably a couple of works that are operating to sabotage the operations of Eskom and benefit from it.”
THE MERCURY
