The allegations were made by the power utility's former chief procurement officer, Solly Tshitangano, who was fired last week “with immediate effect” after he was found guilty on five charges after a disciplinary hearing. He could now face criminal and civil charges for his role in awarding R8bn in contracts to Econ Oil.
Tshitangano was suspended in February this year pending an investigation into his misconduct. He hit back by writing to President Cyril Ramaphosa, public enterprises minister, Pravin Gordhan and Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts accusing De Ruyter of racism and misconduct.
The board released a statement on Wednesday detailing the findings of a report by advocate Ishmael Semenya, which described some of the allegations against De Ruyter as “wild,” “bizarre” and “baseless”.
On the allegation that De Ruyter is racist and preferred a white company above one that is black owned - the investigation could not find any substantiation that he conducted himself in any manner that would amount to racist practice.
The statement states that when Semenya interviewed Tshitangano, he denied making the allegations.
Semenya is further quoted as saying “nothing could be more bizarre” in response to allegations that De Ruyter breached Eskom’s delegation of authority and exercised poor governance.
The Eskom board said it “deeply regrets the waste of time, money, resources incurred by taxpayers” as a result of what it describes as “irresponsible conduct”.
Eskom Board Statement
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) June 2, 2021
Racism allegations about Eskom CEO rubbished by Senior Counsel finding. The use of the race card without foundation, merit or substance has no place at Eskom!@News24 @SABCNews @NewzroomAfrika @eNCA @IOL @ewnupdates @SundayTimesZA @SowetanLIVE pic.twitter.com/nt85JqNgpT
