South Africa’s power utility company Eskom is set to recover US $106m from ABB South Africa, after the company and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) reached an agreement with ABB to pay back in full, money derived from overpayment by Eskom. The unlawful contract by ABB, was for work at the Kusile Power station that commenced in 2015.
The recovery follows the issuing of summons by Eskom and the SIU for damages of about US $257.8m in the North Gauteng High Court to recover funds from former Eskom executives, former Board members, members of the Gupta family and their associates.
The settlement agreement is a culmination of years of work by various parties, particularly after detailed investigations by the Special Investigations Tribunal in terms of the Presidential Proclamation R11 of 2018, initiated by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE). The SIU is currently executing proclamations into Denel, Transnet, Eskom and SAA.
The DPE continues to monitor the implementation of consequence management arising from forensic reports at SOEs in order to ensure that those implicated in wrongdoings are brought to book.
The department is also in the process of rolling out an SOE Risk and Integrity Framework geared towards restoring good governance in SOEs. The framework will introduce stringent reforms in relation to the management of conflicts of interest and integrity assessments of SOE employees and companies doing business with the SOEs.
The Department commend ABB for their disclosure and urges other companies both local and international to also come forward and make disclosures, as the SIU through the proclamation will track down all those culpable in the state capture project.
Kusile power station
Kusile is a coal-fired power station close to the existing Kendal power station in the Delmas municipal area of the Mpumalanga province South Africa
www.ferroalloynet.com
