South Africa’s state-owned power utility spends R3.2 billion a year on private security to tackle sabotage and to protect its senior executives, TimesLive reports.
Eskom’s general manager for security Karen Pillay butted heads with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) over the slow pace of prosecution for alleged sabotage cases at the power utility.
Pillay says she constantly receives death threats, adding that she gets calls from unknown individuals telling her to stop what she is doing and “get out of the way”. She isn’t the only executive at the power utility to have received threats against their life.
In May 2022, Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer received a bomb threat from a cellphone number not registered according to South Africa’s RICA law.
The power utility announced the incident in November after a suspect linked to the threat was arrested. On Friday, 18 November, the Hawks and contracted investigators traced and arrested a 27-year-old suspect — with “overwhelming evidence” reportedly linking the suspect to the crime.
Pillay said Eskom has to “micromanage” investigations into sabotage and faces challenges including prosecutors being unavailable after hours and the unwillingness of magistrates.
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“We’ve had to extend support in the sense that we’ve put watching briefs on some of the cases, where we contract legal experts to guide some of these prosecutors, and even the investigative teams on specific matters,” City Press quoted Pillay as saying.
“We’ve had issues such as the unavailability of prosecutors after hours, unavailability and unwillingness of magistrates, having to force commissioned police officers to obtain confessions — this is really challenging and time-consuming for us to manage.”
Pillay added that prosecutors don’t appear to understand the impact of these sabotage cases on the country, often releasing individuals on “ridiculous amounts” of bail. “It’s literally a process of having to walk each case as we present it before the court, almost the process of micromanaging,” she said.
The NPA, however, disagrees. The authority’s spokesperson Bulelwa Makeke said its specialized units are “highly skilled to deal with complex cases relating to essential infrastructure”. “There is no indication that the courts cannot deal with these offences,” City Press quoted Makeke as saying.
“It is also critical for the SOEs [state-owned enterprises] to ensure that their controls and security measures are in place to prevent any unlawful activities at their sites.”
Six arrests in two weeks
Between 16 and 30 November, Eskom’s efforts to tackle sabotage and theft at its power stations bore fruit, with six suspects arrested during the two weeks. Three individuals were arrested for illegally swapping Eskom’s coal delivery — which undergoes pre-tests and has to be certified by both the power utility and the mine in question — with sub-par coal.
The first incident involved only a truck driver truck driver spotted leaving an illegal coal yard by Bidvest Protea Coin investigators contracted by Eskom. The second coal-swapping incident saw both a truck driver and their supervisor arrested.
The driver admitted to offloading Eskom’s coal at the Rondebult coal yard and alleged that he had done so as instructed by his supervisor.
On 29 November 2022, Eskom announced the arrest of two security guards contracted by the utility who allegedly enabled diesel theft at the Port Rex Power Station in East London.
Eskom said the 5,863 litres of diesel the perpetrators allegedly helped steal was valued at approximately R145,930. The power utility announced the arrest of a maintenance contractor at its Camden Power Station on 16 November 2022.
The suspect was found to have intentionally removed a bearing oil drain plug, resulting in the repeated tripping of one of the generating unit’s oil burners.
“This malicious act caused all the oil to drain out from the bearing, thus damaging the bearing which, in turn, prevented the mills from operating optimally,” Eskom said. “Camden Unit 4 subsequently tripped after losing all the mills.”
SOURCE: My broadband
