Twenty years behind bars for former Eskom employee, service provider

A former Eskom employee and a service provider were on Tuesday sentenced to an effective 20 years’ imprisonment for fraud and corruption that cost the power utility R35-million.

Former Eskom financial controller Mosai Barnard Moraka and Eskom service provider Victor Vilosi Tshabalala were each found guilty of 53 counts of fraud and theft.

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As well as the jail term, their properties will be forfeited to the State.

‘Their properties were placed under a preservation order in November and will now be sold and the proceeds will be paid directly to Eskom,’ said the power utility in a statement on Thursday.

The pair was immediately taken into custody upon handing down of the sentence.

‘This is another welcome milestone in Eskom’s efforts to weed out corruption within its ranks,’ said Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter.

‘While the sums involved in this particular case are relatively modest, the conviction and sentencing of these criminals should send a strong message to all Eskom employees that corrupt elements have no place in the organisation.

‘This is only one of many cases of corruption that Eskom is pursuing against staff.’

Moraka and Tshabalala were arrested in 2019 following an investigation initiated by Eskom’s Audit and Forensics department.

‘What is most pleasing about this judgement is that the taxpayers will recover some of the stolen funds through the sale of the ill-gotten property belonging to the convicts.’

Sentencing the thieves, Magistrate Emmanuel Magampa said the pair was motivated by greed, and that he had no choice but to impose the guaranteed 20 years’ imprisonment for the convictions.

He said fraud at State-owned entities drains the country’s resources through the billions in bailouts that the government must keep advancing to stricken parastatals.

The thieves’ corruption scam occurred between January 2016 and September 2018, perpetrated through the creation of fictitious invoices and payment for services not rendered to Meagra Transportation, a company owned by Tshabalala.

Magistrate Magampa said Moraka was in a position of trust as an Eskom employee, which placed in him the duty not only to be vigilant when dealing with Eskom resources, but to also ‘protectively safeguard against theft’.

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