Fin24 reports that according to the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), the Eskom board's probe into claims against the power utility’s CEO André De Ruyter will be a "sham process".

On Saturday, the trade union issued a statement in response to a decision by the Standing Committee of Public Accounts (Scopa) to halt its investigation into De Ruyter. The matter concerns allegations raised by suspended Chief Procurement Officer Solly Tshitangano in a letter to Scopa in which he claimed that there had been procurement irregularities, and even racism on the part of De Ruyter. In March, Scopa undertook to investigate the serious claims.  Last week, it met to discuss the way forward for its inquiry after receiving a letter from Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan requesting it to suspend its probe, as the Eskom board had launched its own investigation into the matter. Scopa chair Mkhuleko Hlengwa assented to Parliament's probe being held in abeyance to allow Eskom to complete its work. However, Scopa said it wanted Eskom to complete the investigation within 90 days and report on the outcomes so that a decision could be made whether a parliamentary inquiry was warranted or not. Numsa, however, expressed concerns over the Eskom probe. "We have no faith in the investigation which has been launched by the Eskom board into De Ruyter," the statement read. The trade union further accused the Eskom board of not acting independently. It expressed the belief that De Ruyter would be exonerated in the same way that the chief operations officer Jan Oberholzer had previously been exonerated in investigations against him.*

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Lameez Omarjee at Fin24

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