By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Business Leadership SA (BLSA) says it believes it did the right thing to fund the controversial intelligence reports into crime and corruption at Eskom commissioned by former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter.
BLSA paid R18 million for the investigation, a decision that was approved by the board.
The work, contracted out to George Fivaz Forensic and Risk (GFFR), became controversial when it emerged that an apartheid operative, Tony Oosthuizen, had undertaken the investigation and that it had been funded by BLSA “off the books” of Eskom.
It was also reported by investigative journalist Jacques Pauw in articles on News24 that the reports produced by Oosthuizen were devoid of useful information and were packed with nonsense conspiracy theories.
According to CEO of BLSA Busi Mavuso — who held a question and answer session with the media alongside CEO of Business Unity SA (BUSA) Cas Coovadia on Thursday afternoon — the investigation was meant to help Eskom from an operational perspective by enabling the utility to gather intelligence. The investigation was not a strategic issue, she said.
Mavuso also noted that the request for funding was made to the BLSA’s leadership and not to her personally. She added that providing such funding is part of the normal course of business for the BLSA, which has a strategic objective to enable a capable state.
“The request made to BLSA was to support work that they would ordinarily support. So this was not a request which was odd, which was an anomaly,” Mavuso said.
“Before I was an Eskom board member, BLSA did this work. When I was an Eskom board member, BLSA continued to do this work. And after I was an Eskom board member, BLSA continues to do this work.”
The nature of the BLSA’s work, Mavuso added, “was never going to change because I am an Eskom director”.
Coovadia said his organisation, of which BLSA is a member, wholeheartedly supported the decision and, in recent discussions with CEOs, had not received any pushback. He acknowledged, though, “that lessons have been learned.”
He said the assertion that the reports from GFFR were not worth the paper they were written on did not correspond with the information they received.