The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) wants a meeting with the electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa to reveal details of corruption within Eskom.
Speaking to eNCA, Malekutu Motubatse, the union’s highveld regional chairperson, said that NUM members approach the union’s leadership with information about corrupt staff and managers in Eskom power stations.
NUM members know who is corrupt and know managers who have private business interests.
‘We have names and surnames. We gave comrade Pravin Gordhan the names and surnames of managers that we know are corrupt.’
NUM met with Gordhan earlier this year, but they were not made aware of details about any action taken based on the information they provided.
In response to a question asking whether NUM members are also implicated in corruption, Motubatse said: ‘We don’t want to be specific. It is Eskom employees who have their hands in the cookie jar’.
Motubatse said that corruption in Eskom is the main reason for the poor performance of the utility. ‘We are subject to load-shedding as a country because of corrupt activities at Eskom,’ he said.
‘Load-shedding can be done tomorrow if a minister will just listen,’ he said.
The problems include people stealing coal and diesel, damaging plants to get maintenance contracts, and delivering the wrong spares and equipment.
Because of corruption and fraud, there are significant delays in awarding contracts and ‘shady service providers’ who do very poor work are employed.
Ramokgopa said operational challenges at power stations are to blame for load-shedding and has downplayed the role of corruption in Eskom’s difficulties.
He dismissed De Ruyter’s and Mathebula’s warnings, saying corruption is not at the heart of Eskom’s operational troubles.