DA calls on Gordhan to ensure that SOEs cooperate with SIU in corruption probes

28 May 2021

Note to Editors: Please find attached soundbite by Ghaleb Cachalia MP.

The DA is calling on the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, to ensure that all State-owned enterprises (SOEs) that are being investigated by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) cooperate and provide the Unit with all it needs to conclude its investigations.

This after News24 reported that key documents pertinent to the wide-scale corruption investigation at Eskom have gone missing.

Not only does there appear to be a concerted effort to now hobble this SIU investigation into corruption so widespread that one Eskom manager has previously said, “There almost isn’t a single contract at Eskom that is not tainted by corruption in some way or another. Even the tea and sugar contract at Megawatt Park seem warped…”, but when SIU head advocate, Andy Mothibi, requested resources in 2019 to further the investigation, he received a cold shoulder from the SOE.

All SOEs seems to be employing the same playbook, with the SIU running into similar issues with its investigation at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) where a lack of documents and paper trails are cause for major concern.

Let us be clear; no matter the roadblocks these SEOs lay before the SIU, the DA has full confidence that the Unit will expose every piece of rot. Those individuals guilty of corruption are simply prolonging the inevitable. South Africans will no longer tolerate this malfeasance and capture while they are suffering to provide food for their tables.

Corrupt individuals and those Ministers who aided them and benefitted from this corruption will be cast aside, as they should be.

Issued by Ghaleb Cachalia, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 28 May 2021