Johannesburg – Eskom has announced that the internal grievance procedure against its Chief Operations Officer (COO) Jan Oberholzer has been brought to a close, and that it wishes to set the public record straight on the matter.
Following the court’s findings against Eskom on a payment dispute with contractor Aveng Ltd, Eskom approached Advocate Nazir Cassim seeking his counsel on the way forward in his investigation into an employee’s grievance against Oberholzer, said Eskom in a statement.
“This court judgement, delivered in the South Gauteng division of the High Court on 11 September 2020, was the only outstanding matter related to the aforementioned grievance.
“The employee concerned also made public allegations at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. Eskom wishes to set the public record straight,” said the power utility.
In his report following the investigation, Advocate Cassim directed Eskom to conduct a disciplinary action against the COO on the allegation that he had favoured the interests of Aveng above those of Eskom by pressuring the employee to settle a R40-million invoice due to the contractor.
The advocate also advised Eskom to await the outcome of the court case before taking any action, said the power utility.
“The High Court ruling has now vindicated the COO’s stance on the payment dispute with Aveng. In a subsequent opinion, Adv. Cassim has cleared Mr Oberholzer of all wrongdoing on this matter, which brings the grievance procedure against the COO to finality.
“The Eskom board strongly condemns persistent, unfounded and scurrilous allegations against Mr Oberholzer, which have not only served to distract management’s attention away from the very critical job of correcting the poor performance of Eskom’s generation plant, but have also unnecessarily brought disrepute to Eskom and dragged the name of a key and dedicated employee into non-existent corruption scandals,” Eskom said in a
