Andre de Ruyter has rubbished suggestions that there is any conspiracy behind cancelling a tender with Econ Oil worth R14 billion in his first few weeks in the job, reports News24.
The power supplier’s chief executive has said that he acted as “any responsible CEO would have” when the tender was cancelled. Eskom is embroiled in a court battle with Econ Oil over the cancellation of the deal and has asked the high court to set aside the tender deal due to “numerous irregularities in the procurement process.”
De Ruyter is no stranger to controversy and has faced allegations of racism this year over his alleged favouring of white-owned suppliers over black-owned ones, like Econ Oil. In both the investigation into the cancelling of the tender and his racism allegations De Ruyter was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, Econ Oil has snapped back at Eskom in court asserting that the contract was concluded. Econ has been a long-term contractor of Eskom since at least 2003 and have been paid more than R15.7 billion during this time.
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