It is no surprise that senior cop Brigadier Jaap Burger who was the contact person between the police and disgraced Andre de Ruyter blue-ticked the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) because Megawatt Park is a toxic place.
This was the view of national police commissioner General Fannie Masemola who appeared before Scopa on Wednesday alongside Deputy Police Minister Cassel Mathale.
Masemola had been instructed to make the appearance with Burger, who the committee believes is seating on a mine of information that can assist Scopa to understand alleged looting and corruption shenanigans at Eskom.
But Burger pulled a no-show, instead telling Masemola to tell Scopa he was willing to appear only if it will be an in-camera grilling.
Masemola said he understood Burger’s stance for Eskom had proven to be a toxic space with a lot of competing interests of the so-called cartels operating within the power utility.
“The Eskom space is very toxic and everything that you get from Eskom, you cannot take it at face value. We have arrested our own members that we have sent there,” said Masemola.
“There are too many groupings or syndicates or cartels which are going all over to some of our investigators coming with various information and smear campaigns against each other.
“Burger is not the only investigator, we have various investigators at various levels dealing with matters of Eskom. We are not afraid to tackle Eskom, we are tackling it and we will make inroads. It is unfortunate that the space is contested by all sorts of bad people.”
Scopa members slammed the police for dropping the ball in investigations on Eskom.
ANC’s Bheki Hadebe said the police must be ashamed that they do not have a copy of the rogue intelligence report that De Ruyter clandestinely commissioned, which has since been provided to Scopa by the special investigating unit (SIU).
This, said Hadebe, did not present a good picture of an SAPS (SA Police Service) that is on top of issues as claimed by Masemola.
“It rings alarm bells that it took the SIU to get the report that you [SAPS] do not have,” Hadebe said. “I really do not know what it will take for you to take this matter seriously.”
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