Johannesburg- Questions are being raised on how serious embattled power utility Eskom is about combating corruption within its ranks following revelations by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) that it found that more than 100 employees of the utility had done business with the company to the tune of billions of rand.
Insiders at Eskom said there was no will to rein in corruption at the state-owned entity.
“Eskom has at its disposal a system called ProcureCheck, created by LexisNexis. The system allows Eskom to onboard a minimum of 500 employees and a minimum of 500 suppliers/vendors on the system to pick up conflicts of interest. However, the system is hardly used as people choose to ignore it as it will raise red flags,” the source said.
Sunday World has seen a document detailing ProcureCheck capabilities. The document shows the system raises the alarm if any Eskom employees is a director of an active vendor.
The system can also identify an employee who co-owns property with a director of an active vendor and/or if a vendor sold a property to an active employee. A source at Eskom said ProcureCheck costs R30 000 for every 500
employees and suppliers onboarded. The system can do employee checks on their business interests through the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission and property ownership.
Briefing the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Tuesday, Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said the lifestyle audit on 383 executives and senior managers and their partners had highlighted 34 high-risk cases that were referred to the SIU.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said it had found that 102 Eskom officials were doing business with the parastatal to the tune of
R5-billion, and they had referred the matter to the Hawks.
“We don’t arrest anyone but we investigate and take the matter to the special tribunal to recover the money. We have been investigating these cases since 2018, and we have referred the matter to Eskom to deal with the evidence we have provided.
“There are more ongoing investigations taking place, and in most instances some people do not want to cooperate, ” he said.
An employee of LexisNexis, who did not want to be identified, confirmed that Eskom was one of the entities using ProcureCheck.
“The problem of not embracing what can be a big impediment to corruption does not only reside with Eskom. We have presented the solutions to many state-owned entities … but as soon as procurement managers understand how the system works, they get disinterested.
“When it comes to Eskom, there is no way the company could have missed conflict of interest or missed shady suppliers if they used the system properly,” the mole said.
Eskom, via written responses from its media desk, said it has been using ProcureCheck since May 2017 and that all its employees were onboarded.
“The main focus of the system is on Tender Committee members and procurement staff. In addition to this system, Eskom has improved on its declaration of interest system to detect conflicts,” the entity said.
Eskom however, denied that it was not using the system optimally. “The allegation is incorrect. The system is used optimally.”
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