Cape Town – The Pretoria High Court has reportedly granted the ANC the right to serve papers in its defamation claim against former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter – in Germany.
According to Mail and Guardian, the court granted an order, unopposed, to allow the ANC to serve papers abroad in its defamation suit against De Ruyter on Wednesday.
An authorised official under German law will serve the papers to de Ruyter, News24 reported.
De Ruyter left SA shortly after being abruptly asked to leave Eskom in February following an explosive interview with eNCA, the report said.
During the interview, De Ruyter was asked if Eskom was a feeding trough for the ANC, and he said that it was.
He alleged that a “high-ranking politician” was directly involved in corruption.
“I would say the evidence suggests that it is. I expressed my concern to a senior government minister about attempts, in my view, to water down governance around the 8.5 billion USD that, by in large through Eskom’s intervention, we got at COP26.
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“And the response was essentially, ‘you have to be pragmatic. In order to pursue the greater good, you have to enable some people to eat a little bit’,” De Ruyter said.
However, when he appeared before the Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) and was asked by ANC MP Bheki Hadebe to name the high-ranking official who was involved in corruption at Eskom, he said he was not at liberty to do so for legal reasons.
“It would not be appropriate for me divulge the identity of that minister because it can be construed as general approval or support of the corruption and theft that is still ongoing at Eskom,” he said.
The ANC wants the court to declare De Ruyter’s statement to eNCA defamatory and order him to retract it.
In a recent statement, the ANC questioned the timing of De Ruyter’s allegations, saying that he wanted to tarnish the party’s image ahead of the 2024 general elections.
“At the time when South Africans are starting to focus their attention on the upcoming national general elections, it now becomes even more questionable as to what could have motivated de Ruyter’s utterances against the ANC,” it said.
“It is curious why a chief executive officer of a state-owned enterprise would go out of their way to affirm reports which are not grounded in an iota of evidence.”
ANC STATEMENT ON ANDRE DE RUYTER’S UNFORUNATE DECAMPAIGNING TACTICS. pic.twitter.com/cvlqceFy7E
— ANC SECRETARY GENERAL | Cde Mbalula (@MbalulaFikile) April 26, 2023
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
