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By Loyiso Sidimba 
59m ago
Johannesburg – Electric power company Eskom claims R3.8 billion from the Gupta family, their associates and a former cabinet minister.
The Guptas have been accused of a series of corruption scandals in various state entities and government departments, but have yet to face the music for their alleged crimes.
The local arm of a Swedish-Swiss multinational company agreed to return 1.57 billion rand to Eskom after receiving irregular contract extensions from the entity.
Public Enterprise Minister Pravin Gordhan congratulated the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) and Eskom on the recovery.
Gordhan said the next step was to review the dubious contracts, pursue the claims issued against the Gupta family and their associates, former executives, board members and a former minister, who said he would continue to mislead the commission of inquiry into the state-led capture by Supreme Court Vice President Raymond. Zondo.
Eskom and the SIU announced that they had reached an agreement with ABB South Africa after it agreed to return the money due to collusion with certain officials of the energy company to irregularly award the company a contract for the control and instrumentation of R2.2bn in Kusile Power. station in March 2015.
In July, Gordhan announced that ABB, Tubular Construction Projects, the Stefanutti Stocks-Basil Read joint venture and the Stefanutti Stocks-Izazi joint venture received a 1 billion rand overpayment, while another company, Tenova Mining and Minerals SA, received 735 million rand.
The SIU has tracked these companies down and has not ruled out further recoveries.
SIU director Andy Mothibi said an agreement was signed between the unit, Eskom and ABB on Friday morning for the company to return the money.
“The money will be paid as agreed,” Mothibi assured the country, adding that the SIU was considering starting the blacklisting process for ABB South Africa to prevent it from doing business with the government.
Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said that some of the energy company’s officials illegally and fraudulently induced it to pay about 800 million rand to ABB South Africa in illegal modification orders.
De Ruyter said Eskom paid ABB 3.1 billion rand and that the claimed overpayment included collusion worth R250m, interest worth R380m and the proceeds from R160m.
However, De Ruyter argued that ABB had completed work for which Eskom received value and warned that hiring a new company would result in a four-year delay and a reduction in risk burden.
He said Eskom would apply to ABB South Africa’s National Treasury to continue the work, but on the condition that the company does not get any benefit from the contract.
Mothibi said that the criminal investigation was ongoing and that no arrests had been made in the ABB investigation.
He said the company did not admit its guilt on its own, but only on the work of investigators and overwhelming evidence.
”ABB did the right thing because they realized that the research is intense. It’s a significant recovery on our part, ”said Mothibi.
He said the SIU had identified other potential areas for more recoveries.
Mothibi declined to identify the people involved in the ABB case because they had not been charged.
He said the higher court’s request to review and annul ABB’s contract because it had been awarded in a corrupt and irregular way would be launched early in the new year.
Political Bureau
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