Eskom symbolises criminality that has brought SA to its knees

In the absence of concrete evidence placed in the public domain, we cannot know how true the allegations made by Andre de Ruyter, Eskom’s just-departed CEO, are.

According to De Ruyter, about R1bn is stolen from Eskom per month through the corruption that has engulfed the company. What’s more, he claimed, the ANC, which as government is supposed to be the custodian of the company, is in fact part of the looting.

To cap it all, De Ruyter says, someone tried to poison him with cyanide.

Ordinarily, this should spur the likes of the Hawks (formal name the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation) into action. As in yesterday.

Potential charges to be answered include attempted murder and organised criminal activity. Even treason, given the impact on the country if Eskom were to collapse at the hands of parasitic syndicates which have it in their clutches. For the same reason, the law enforcement agencies should not let De Ruyter’s claims slide.

He is either an upstanding citizen doing his patriotic duty by alerting us to the grave danger faced by Eskom and the country, or he is crying wolf to save face, seeing he did not, to use his own words, “shoot the lights out” in his assigned task of ending load-shedding. We deserve to know the truth of the matter and hold the culprits to account. 

But news of the company being captured by criminals, who reputedly make a killing out of the destruction of our power system, is not new.

Stories of Eskom being supplied with substandard coal, which then damages its generation units, or other acts of internal sabotage are a matter of public record.

Naively, many may have thought the demise of the Gupta-centred state capture enterprise of the Zuma years marked a turning point in our fight against such criminality. 

Alas, it is now apparent that all we did was exchange one gang of thieves for another, with Eskom being the common trough to feed from.

To be able to execute their nefarious plans, the crooks have pushed the entity to the point of collapse, as evidenced by the progressive decline in its ability to provide reliable, adequate power to the country and the economy.

It is unlikely that, even with total support from government, whoever replaces De Ruyter will succeed in fixing Eskom without facing down and defeating the criminal syndicates sponging off it, destroying it in the process.

This, of course, is a feat that can be achieved only if the state, through the criminal justice system, does its job of arresting and putting the culprits behind bars, especially the masterminds who have become fabulously rich from sabotaging our economy, and the country by extension.

We should disregard ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula’s knee-jerk bluster about suing De Ruyter for implicating the party and some of its members in criminal activities around Eskom.

It’s only a distraction which defocuses us from what is an existential threat to the country as we know it. Besides, even he surely doesn’t believe such a case could be won in court?

This column is not so much about the now-legendary shenanigans at Eskom as it is about a more insidious, yet no less dangerous threat, to us as a nation — the spread of criminality and the growing power of its syndicates.

The role of criminality in our power troubles, and in disrupting economic and other activities, suggests that the country, its people and economy are already held hostage by criminals

If anything, the criminal siege of Eskom is symbolic of the creeping lawlessness which puts every aspect of our lives at risk, ultimately endangering South Africa’s very integrity.

Cable theft and the vandalisation of infrastructure have worsened power shortages and cost service providers billions of rand annually.

The media has reported ad nauseam on the intimidatory activities of so-called construction mafias, who demand a cut of contracts in return for no value, often causing entities which refuse to play ball to abandon projects.

Elsewhere, such as on the Cape Flats, communities already live under gang rule, with criminals, who are the actual menace to society, extorting a “protection fee”. Or, under the guise of being taxi operators, they seek to dictate who motorists may transport, or not — all on pain of violence. Sometimes they shoot up buses in a bid to divert passengers to taxis.

While the affluent may think they are immune to crime thanks to their secure estates and armed response, it may be a matter of time before criminals, emboldened by the inability of the state to bring them to book, get to them — having killed even the bodyguards in the process.

Recent government statistics showing the continued rise of serious crimes, including gun violence, attest to the failure of the state to get on top of the problem.

In too many parts of the country we already have a de facto coexistence of the law and criminality, where law enforcement is either co-opted or seeks to make peace with criminals. It is a scenario we must not accept as a society — a tiger once ridden we will never be able to dismount.

The role of criminality in our power troubles, and in disrupting economic and other activities, suggests that the country, its people and economy are already held hostage by criminals.

Politicians across all parties who either turn a blind eye or pay only lip service to reversing the tide of anarchy will find soon enough that they are unable to govern without the say-so of organised crime.

It seems that, having succeeded in ending the tyranny of apartheid, our society may yet be enslaved by criminals. Which begs the question: what kind of society do we want to become, or to bequeath our children and their children?

Is it a country where all live in fear, obliged by virtue of being alive and eking out a living to pay extortion fees to criminals?

LISTEN | ANC threatens legal action against De Ruyter after 'feeding trough' corruption allegations