AFRICA ( Commonwealth Union) _ According to the business’s previous chief executive, Eskom, the state-owned electrical provider of South Africa, loses $55 million on average each month to corruption, is indebted, and struggles to meet the nation’s energy needs.
Andre de Ruyter reaffirmed his claims about the degree of corruption at Eskom in a paper he gave in a remote interview with a parliamentary committee on public accounts. This is a conservative estimate based on my assessment of the losses incurred by Eskom that have come to my attention, he wrote in the document. $55 million, or one billion rand, “is being stolen from Eskom each month.
The 60 million residents of South Africa have been without electricity for up to 12 hours per day for months.
Eskom’s outdated and badly maintained power plants are unable to supply adequate electricity to the largest industrial power on the continent. And when the southern winter approaches and demand rises, things could get worse.
According to the administration, the power issue is costing the economy $50 million a day in lost generation.
Eskom is currently in debt to the government for 422 billion rand, or roughly $23 billion, as a result of years of poor management and corruption under President Jacob Zuma (2009–2018).
Coal continues to provide 80% of South Africa’s electricity. Rich nations agreed to a just transition to clean energy last year at COP27, which included a $98 billion investment package. Andre de Ruyter was appointed CEO of Eskom in 2020 before being unceremoniously fired in February 2023. In an interview just hours before leaving, he charged key government figures, including a minister he would not identify, with taking money from Eskom. He expressed skepticism on the government’s resolve to combat systemic corruption.
