City Press reports that Eskom’s board is turning its attention to acting CEO Calib Cassim’s role in the tailor-made R500 million emergency security contract that was awarded to the Fidelity Services Group, which the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has now found to be unlawful.

A criminal investigation into Eskom’s suspended head of security, Advocate Karen Pillay, is also under way, for her role in the controversial contract. Last week, the SIU told Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) that its preliminary investigation into the Fidelity contract confirmed that it had been awarded to the security company without the approval of the Eskom board. It was previously reported that former CEO André de Ruyter, Pillay and former chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer had engineered the three-month emergency security deal to exclusively suit Fidelity, thus excluding any other service provider. Fidelity’s deal was conceived on the back of the infamous Fivaz initiative, which was unlawfully commissioned by De Ruyter to conduct covert operations at the power utility without the knowledge of the country’s state intelligence agencies. At the SIU’s feedback to Scopa, its head, Andy Mothibi, informed MPs that his unit would consult Eskom’s board on the action the utility should take against the executives – current and former – found to have been directly involved in appointing Fidelity without following proper procedures, while relying on the contents of an unlawfully conceived covert operation.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Nkululeko Ncana at City Press (subscriber access only)

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