While you were asleep: The great fuel heist at Eskom

We kick off the new week with a look at Eskom after a week of load-shedding there is more expected for the week ahead but how is the embattled power utility supposed to operate efficiently when its own employees are in cahoots with crime syndicates?

The outstanding investigative journalism house, amaBhungane, has uncovered yet another web of corruption at Eskom, this time involving the theft of millions of rands worth of fuel from the Kriel Power Station in Mpumalanga.

The theft all has to do with the weighbridge being outside of the power station unlike at other Eskom facilities where the weighbridge is inside the yard. This allows drivers to drive somewhere else first before coming to the power station.

While security is also lax at the facility revealed a source, saying as long as a truck driver has the correct documentation security will wave them through and never checks the inside of the truck.

Oversight at the facility is a shambles as one source explains, “If there was proper control on the amount of fuel being ordered, then surely someone would have picked up that the numbers don’t add up.”

Three drivers who spoke to amaBhungane said a fuel tanker is worth between R500,000 and R1 million depending on the size while on the black market it would fetch around R250,000 at a minimum.

Drivers also indicated that the stolen fuel would regularly be escorted by a policeman who would be paid directly in cash by the black-market buyer while drivers received R9,000 paid into their accounts via cash deposits at ATMs, making it difficult to trace.

In the currency markets, poor economic data from China has seen emerging markets weaken to the Far East this morning with the rand taking the biggest hit.

“Chinese retail sales for April fell by 11.1% vs. estimates of a 6.1% drop, while industrial production dropped by 2.9% vs. estimates of a 1.4% increase. The Covid-driven lockdowns also saw Chinese unemployment rise to 6.7% in April,” says TreasuryONE.

The rand weakened to R16.27/$ this morning on the back of the Chinese data but has managed to recover some of its losses thus far to currently trade at R16.22/$.

Gold is a touch softer at $1,807, but platinum and palladium are both trading firmer at $941 and $1,955, respectively.

The price of oil has fallen with Brent crude currently trading 2% down at $109.50 a barrel.