Gordhan denies interfering with De Ruyter's work

Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan has launched a scathing attack on former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter, accusing him of making allegations to cover up his lack of performance at the power utility and using “swart gevaar” tactics against those with whom he disagrees.

Gordhan also suggested that in publishing a book about his tenure at Eskom, De Ruyter may have breached his employment contract, which prohibited him from publicising information about the company.

“I think the CEO has gone and done two things that should be noteworthy as a self-proclaimed champion of corporate governance and as the only person in town who understands the role of various institutions and people in the corporate governance context,” said Gordhan.

“There is clause 15 in the contract that he signed when he was employed as CEO, which requires confidentiality in terms of the affairs of the institution that he served. In no big institution like Eskom and the private sector would you have a CEO who has left for whatever reason going and writing chapter and verse about events that had been taking place within the company itself.

“He seems to have remembered, for some reason in particular, the 1980s and taking the country back to swart gevaar tactics by labelling all of us as communists, as people who are mindless, as people for whom the hammer and sickle must be drawn in our parking bays — which is the worst insult anyone can cast on South Africans who want this country to work, who want Eskom to work, who want load-shedding to end and who want to mobilise capacity within Eskom, government and within society as a whole to make sure the right things are done.”

Gordhan was appearing before parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) to respond to allegations of corruption made by De Ruyter in an interview with eNCA in February and in parliament last month.

He dismissed allegations that he interfered in the company’s operations and micromanaged the utility as absolute nonsense.

Gordhan described himself as an engaged and vigilant shareholder representative who had to ensure that what had to be done to mitigate load-shedding was done, without necessarily “micromanaging” Eskom.

“There was no interference with the work of the CEO or any senior manager at Eskom, and that is the excuse that is being used in books or in interviews for the lack of performance. It is a pitiful excuse,” he said.

He acknowledged that as a shareholder he had not been shy to ask tough questions, including: “Why has the energy availability factor been declining over the three-year period during the stint of this particular CEO?”

These were questions he had to ask to enable him to explain or give reasons to parliament and the public about the situation at Eskom, he said. “So if tough questions can’t be answered, then it says something about the capability of the individuals.”

Gordhan suggested De Ruyter did not like him asking questions and saw himself as a know-it-all.

De Ruyter told Scopa last month that Gordhan was “extremely involved in operational detail”, which filtered down to individual power stations, including speaking to middle-ranking officials in the organisation, bypassing the CEO, COO, head of generation and others.

He said he was not certain whether Gordhan’s “interventions” in the day-to-day operations were meant to gain or verify information. “I don’t know, but it made life as the responsible accounting officer quite difficult — different cooks in the kitchen don’t always result in a good meal.”

In response, Gordhan said as a trained pharmacist he could not give engineering instructions to workers in a power station and that the allegation was “absolute nonsense”.

He found interactions with Eskom professionals “extremely valuable” in understanding constraints and possibilities at the power utility. 

Gordhan said many thought outside the box and had solutions, but it appeared nobody lent an ear to how a collection of ideas of different individuals, with wisdom and experience, could benefit Eskom and the country.

The elevated levels of load-shedding also necessitated that the shareholder, where appropriate, intervened to find out what was going on.

For example, when it became public in December that Eskom was having difficulty in acquiring diesel, Gordhan, the acting DG and another official became directly involved in trying to find diesel. He said they did not necessarily manage the procurement thereof, but facilitated it. He said the process was ongoing as they continued to fight about pricing with PetroSA.

“If somebody is upset about that, bad luck, because it was in the public interest to do what we had done.”

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