THE association of Private Security Owners of South Africa (Tapsosa) has welcomed Eskom’s decision to suspend its head of security Karen Pillay.
This after Pillay allegedly played a role in awarding a staggering R500 million tender to Fidelity Security Services over a period of three months.
According to reports, Pillay has been placed on precautionary suspension pending the finalisation and outcome of the probe. This is to allow the investigation to proceed unimpeded.
City Press reported that Eskom paid the Fidelity Services Group R500 million over a three-month period to provide security and collect intelligence at Eskom infrastructure across South Africa.
These services were reportedly procured by former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter and Pillay, and were concluded in October 2022.
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Tapsosa spokeswoman Sindiswa Changuion said they were left shocked when they learnt that Eskom had taken a very questionable decision to grant Fidelity Services Group a three-month tender worth half a billion rand without following any competitive bidding process.
“While we as Tapsosa are pleased with the suspension of Karen Pillay, we believe that more heads ought to roll in relation to the wasteful expenditure of taxpayers money.
"Former CEO De Ruyter must be brought back into the country to account for his involvement in the saga as well,” she said.
Changuion said Fidelity was handpicked to provide Eskom with hundreds of guards to provide security services at the national utility’s power stations.
“We want to know whether people who funded that concocted report along with senior Eskom officials directly or indirectly benefited from tenders that were linked to the findings,” she said.
