{"id":11203,"date":"2020-03-20T17:48:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T17:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/?post_type=stories&p=11203"},"modified":"2024-09-20T13:51:19","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T13:51:19","slug":"deloitte-agrees-to-paybackthemoney-to-eskom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/deloitte-agrees-to-paybackthemoney-to-eskom\/","title":{"rendered":"Deloitte agrees to #PayBackTheMoney to Eskom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global accounting giant Deloitte will pay back R150-million in consulting fees, Eskom and Deloitte announced in a joint statement<\/a> late on Friday.<\/p>\n

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The settlement follows a two-part expos\u00e9 from amaBhungane earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The dirt on Deloitte\u2019s consulting deals at Eskom, part 1<\/a><\/span> showed how procurement processes were manipulated to award Deloitte contracts valued at R207-million, while The dirt on Deloitte\u2019s consulting deals at Eskom, part 2<\/span><\/a> raised uncomfortable questions about the firm\u2019s decision to partner with Nkonki Inc, the auditing firm covertly acquired by the Guptas\u2019 business partner Salim Essa.<\/p>\n

When amaBhungane interviewed Deloitte in December, Deloitte Consulting managing director for Africa Thiru Pillay insisted that the firm would not settle.<\/p>\n

\u201c[O]ne of the toughest decisions that I think the firm has made is to go down this route of legally challenging Eskom and not settling,\u201d Pillay told us.<\/p>\n

\u201c[A] lot of the people that we talked to want to know, \u2018Why did you decide to go down this route?\u2019 Because there’s rumors in the market that some of our competitors have settled\u2026 But our view was that you will have this cloud hanging over your head forever, if you go down that route.<\/p>\n

“And secondly, from a values perspective, is it the case that we are seeking to hide something and therefore settle behind closed doors? Is that what we want to do? And the honest belief from myself and the other members of the leadership team, and that’s not the case, and therefore, we not going to go down that route.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, Pillay said negotiations had reached a stalemate over two issues: Deloitte would not agree that it was \u201ccomplicit with irregular procurement\u201d or that there \u201cany undertone of corruption in [its] relationship with Eskom\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the joint statement, Deloitte admitted that it \u201cparticipated in this irregular procurement process\u201d but in exchange appears to have won a far more valuable concession from Eskom, namely that Eskom\u2019s investigations \u201cshowed no evidence of state capture or corruption\u201d.<\/p>\n

This was a significant u-turn by Eskom whose then chair, Jabu Mabuza, described the contracts as \u201cpure corruption\u201d in an official statement<\/span><\/a> issued last year.<\/p>\n