Eskom Board Gets Tongue Lashing From Scopa

The week’s not getting any better for Eskom after its board got a dressing down from Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on Wednesday night for submitting conflicting reports and over-inflated contracts.

The meeting was a follow-up to an oversight visit to the Medupi and Kusile plants by Scopa late last year.

The Eskom board’s appearance before Scopa didn’t get off to a good start, with MPs expressing their dissatisfaction with the quality of information they had presented.

In the meeting, committee chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa said: “You’re setting us up for failure to make us look like a bunch of idiots… to receive information late and we’re expected to process it, it’s not going to happen.”

Members were also briefed on various contracts that ballooned in price.

Committee member Bheki Hadebe expressed his shock at how some wound up costing Eskom 900% more than planned.

“A complete collapse in the supply chain management system, which is a danger to Eskom itself, the fiscus of our country and the entire economy. How do you have a contract that is modified 900% of its original price.”

Chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer told the committee he would resubmit information which members found lacking.

He also stressed that a number of units at Kusile and Medupi were now complete and feeding power into the grid.

EWN