Eskom corruption probes not targeting kingpins, Jap Burger tells Scopa
Retired top-ranking police officer Brigadier Jap Burger painted a grim picture of the state of corruption at the embattled power utility Eskom.
Burger, who has been described as the central figure in the probe into allegations of corruption, maladministration, sabotage, and political interference at the power utility, briefed Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Wednesday morning on the allegations made by former CEO Andre De Ruyter during an explosive television interview at the beginning of the year.
The committee made the decision to call Burger to appear before it after his name was mentioned during deliberations on the allegations made by De Ruyter.
The committee is still probing the allegations and aiming to finalise its investigation by the end of the year.
He was the designated South African Police Service official dealing with the allegations by De Ruyter.
He tabled a list of challenges with the investigation, adding that investigations are targeting runners and not the kingpins behind Eskom crimes.
"I was tasked by the national commissioner to set up a team to deal with the Eskom investigations. The understanding at the time was that we were going to deal with the investigation comprehensively from the top down.
“The difference between top-down and bottom-up is you going to have a lot of complaints laid where we go after the runners. We catch the guy with a bag of soil that was stolen.
“We have been keeping ourselves busy with that level, which is the general detective level. We don't move up to the orchestrators and the kingpins behind the crimes.
“Everything is pushed down to the transactional level and not the organised crime level.
“The way the organisation [Eskom ] is forced to function is to push everything down to the transactional level. They are not addressing the problem. They are moving away from it. We are not addressing these issues as a matter of national security interest," said Burger.
He told Scopa the investigations are not addressing the real problem.
"What has the national security done around this? What does the National Security Council do?... We are working from a contaminated place.”
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