Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has described Mpumalanga as a “crime scene” in relation to allegations of looting at Eskom power stations.
He said people with “relentless greed” had been involved in corrupt activities at Eskom for the past few years.
Gordhan said they had been trying to fight these corrupt elements, who collaborate with people from outside to steal and loot.
Eskom has a number of power stations in Mpumalanga and the energy availability factor in those stations has dropped.
Gordhan, who was appearing before the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) yesterday, also said he “did not know” if corruption was costing Eskom as much as R1 billion a month in Mpumalanga.
This was claimed by former CEO Andre de Ruyter in a TV interview.
“Is Eskom corruption costing R1bn a month? I don’t know. I haven’t done the counting. But this is not a new revelation as I have indicated,” said Gordhan.
“I have stated publicly that Mpumalanga is certainly a crime scene. There are lots of actors, both outside of Eskom and within Eskom, who are collaborating to undermine the procurement and other processes, supply counterfeit parts, and do a poor job in terms of maintenance of units when they have outages. All of that is done to ensure they get more work at the end of the day and make more money.
“The relentless greed that drives people in this direction continues on an unmitigated basis.”
He said there was also sabotage taking place in some of the power stations, as well as the issue of the use of trucks to deliver coal instead of conveyor belts.
Damages were done to mills so that contractors will continue to get more work at Eskom, Gordhan added.
dailyvoice@inl.co.za