De Ruyter’s claims in his book ‘Truth to Power’ must be tested

I regard Speaking Truth to Power by André de Ruyter not as a “book” in a classical sense and definition, but as a compilation of comprehensive and chronological set of events that took place while he was at the helm at Eskom.

Most of his critics are doing so from a point of view that he is a typical author of a book which expresses his own ideas, views, thoughts and some level of comprehensive research. I’m afraid, this is not entirely so.

Truth to Power

Yes indeed, the book may be spiced with his own views but the main focus and essence of the entire book is about the daily happenings at the power utility during his tenure as CEO.

The events he has recorded in his book, are those, most of which we have heard about but which we saw no action taken against.

While he was leading Eskom, he endlessly spoke about criminality and sabotage which was at an alarming and uncontrollable scale, but we had very little or no evidence that his employers took any meaningful action.

Allegations

We know about allegations of people being arrested for substituting coal with pebbles, but their cases, subsequently being thrown out of court. We know allegations that most of our “good” coal found its way to the Richard’s Bay harbour for the international markets, while Eskom suffered because of third grade coal.

We haven’t even asked who owns those coal businesses. We also know the allegations of purchasing diesel from third parties at obscenely high costs. The classical one was the allegation that in fact two ministers were involved in the coal mafia network but our government saw it as a “storm in a tea cup”.

In fact, instead of the allegations being investigated, the ANC used its majority in parliament not only to vilify the allegations and destroyed any ideas about investigating, but the messenger as well, De Ruyter was branded as being childish When finally De Ruyter made himself available to the parliamentary committee on public accounts (Scopa), many regarded his presentation as hollow, a waste of time and that he was a failure that could not rescue Eskom from its load shedding crisis.

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Revelations

But no-one asked where De Ruyter was speaking from and why. Why couldn’t he be brave enough and face Scopa in person if his allegations had any substance at all. This is South Africa we are living in. People who “speak truth to power” are either dead, in hiding or those who are fortunate to have some money, are in exile.

We have heard for many years about specialised corruption and related activities courts to be established. We have heard of the long-winded talk of the protection of whistle-blowers. And, we have heard of lifestyle audits of public officials and representatives.

None of these have materialised. Do we even ask why? We have also witnessed the collapse of our intelligence services, together with our elite law enforcement agencies. We have even lost count of the number of very important, high-profile cases that get thrown out of court because the law enforcement agencies failed to do their work.

Under those circumstances, who will be so suicidal as to tell all without any guarantee of protection? Certainly, De Ruyter is not expected to be an exception. Only the naive, ignorant and oblivious would expect any whistle-blower to tell all in my country.

Claims

We have to wake up and admit that we are under the governance of people who either only care about themselves, their families, friends and of course their organisation, at the expense of the country and its people.

Our leaders are either directly or indirectly party of the gangster network that ruins our country and its economy. How does one explain a government that doesn’t deem it a priority to protect people whose interest is to save and protect its country against criminality.

De Ruyter’s claims have always been serious enough to warrant immediate investigation. Whether they have any legitimacy or not will be determined by that probe, and not by those who have been implicated or those with vested interests in the matter.

The credibility of De Ruyter’s allegations, like any other one that threatens the stability of our country and its economy, must be thoroughly tested, without fear or favour.

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