The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) Frustrated at the failure of Eskom to respond to Questions on Contracts

PRETORIA, South Africa, August 29, 2018/ -- The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) is frustrated and disappointed again at the failure of Eskom to respond to committee questions on expansions and deviations in the 4th quarter of the 2017/2018 financial year. Although there is progress from the last meeting which took place last week, there is still some difficulty from the entity to account on the contracts. This shows that there is a break down on governance at Eskom which is causing this dead end that the committee experienced today.The committee is concerned to hear that all the 15 deviations that were applied for; in the 4th quarter of the 2017/18 financials; were not emergencies which shows that lack of planning and negligence resulted in them requesting deviations from National Treasury.Scopa is encouraged to hear that about 1049 employees of Eskom are being disciplined; and of those 75 employees have been dismissed. The committee has requested Eskom to forward through all the names of all the employees that are being disciplined, with the charges and timelines of the investigations. Some of those cases are related to finances and specifically on expansions and deviations including the cost factors involved in these cases.  Scopa wants to meet with Eskom again in a month’s time with the hope that Eskom would have had enough time to prepare the necessary information for them to account on all the expansions and deviations on the 4th quarter. The committee wants the details including the names of the project managers and people who were directly involved with each and every contract. Scopa is committed to helping Eskom to turn things around.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic of South Africa: The Parliament