Cape Town - The chairperson of Parliament’s Standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), Mkhuleko Hlengwa has defended himself after Eskom board member Busisiwe Mavuso was told to leave the meeting on Friday.
But on Saturday Cope came out in support of Mavuso, saying she was correct in laying out the facts about what led Eskom to be where it is.
Mavuso had told Scopa that it was due to ANC-led government’s failures that has caused the damage that has been done at the power utility over the years.
She said they must be held accountable as the board, but cannot be the fall guy of the mess created by the government.
“What we will not accept and what we will not agree to in spite of all the challenges we are facing as an organisation and all the efforts that have been put in place is to have this board and André (de Ruyter) as the fall guy for the mess that this organisation is currently experiencing because the reality of the matter is that this is not our mess. We have been brought in to clean it up, but we are not going to be the fall guy for the R300 and whatever billion of Medupi and Kusile that have still not been completed, doing our best and try finalise those projects.
“As André has said, we will avail ourselves, we should be held accountable chairperson to ensure Kusile is finished by 2023. But everything else, honestly we cannot be the fall guy for this ANC-led government,” said Mavuso.
Scopa was conducting its oversight in Medupi and Kusile power stations this week before it met with the board of Eskom.
After the interaction with Scopa, Mavuso was told to leave the meeting.
“Today’s Scopa Parliamentary meeting was for the #Eskom Board and Eskom executives to account. Ms Busisiwe Mavuso is an Eskom Board member and accordingly she must account for the institution the ANC has deployed her in,” said Hlengwa.
However, Cope national spokesperson Dennis Bloem said Mavuso was telling Scopa the truth about the mess at Eskom.
He said it appeared Scopa did not want to hear the truth.
“In our view the chairperson of Scopa Mkhuleko Hlengwa was completely wrong and out of order to accuse Busisiwe Mavuso of performing for cameras. It was also wrong to ask Mavuso to excuse herself from the meeting,” said Bloem.
Hlengwa said the meeting with the Eskom board on Friday was the culmination of a meeting they had in 2019 to fix some of the problems.
“In 2019 Scopa made 23 recommendations to Eskom regarding Medupi and Kusile power stations, to date the board (inclusive of Ms Mavuso) and executives have only achieved success on nine of the 23…that’s what the board must explain,” said Hlengwa.
The Department of Public Enterprises said it was looking into the conduct of the board member.
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