Security guards to march to Eskom demanding answers on Fidelity Services tender

The African Security Congress (ASC), a political party that looks after the interests of private security guards, in particular the public sector, yesterday held a media briefing in Johannesburg, saying it was taking on Eskom’s head of security, Karen Pillay.

It said “Pillay should be suspended while she was being investigated, as well as operations manager Jan Oberholzer, who together with former CEO André de Ruyter, whom the party claims allegedly colluded to give Fidelity Security an uncontested tender”.

“We have sought answers for a long time and we are not getting any response. Eskom should clarify why a tender of this amount was never advertised and put out in the open. Even some of our members providing security at Eskom were unaware of this. We will go up to pursuing a criminal case against them, this is a lot of money that could have been spent on making Eskom better,” said AFC president Tebogo Motloung.

ASC vice-president Tebogo Saidi said a contingent of more than 200 security officers would be descending on Eskom to the outcome of the contract, if people had been arrested, and whether the contract had provided practical value for the utility. “… If the threat was met, how and when was it so, we need those answers,” Saidi said. The news of the contract broke in the media last month, with Eskom saying its security contract with Fidelity was above board.

Eskom referred Business Report to its statement issued recently that the placement of the Fidelity Services security contract was in line with Eskom’s procurement procedure and the National Treasury’s directives for emergency procurement of services. It said the placement of the security contract was necessitated by information received by management indicating that there was a potential serious security risk to Eskom’s operations and assets.

Eskom said the contract was established from the period July, 2022 to September, 2022 with an estimated budget of R500m. It was placed under emergency procurement to avert potential threats and to safeguard critical sites at Eskom. The scope of the contract mainly focused on critical power stations, strategic corporate sites as well the transmission network.

“Prior to placement of the contract, Eskom assessed the quotation from the supplier in responding to Eskom’s request, and it was satisfied on proceeding with their offering including the prices quoted. Operationally, across Eskom sites there was daily and monthly monitoring of activities and the payment of the invoices over the three months were in line with the contracted services. A total of about R250 million including VAT was spent for the duration of the contract,” Eskom said.

Eskom previously confirmed that it would look into allegations that a senior executive is alleged to have colluded with security service providers in sabotaging plants to be eligible for payment for services rendered.