Cape Town – Eskom on Friday terminated six coal transportation agreements after a tip-off alerted the power utility to firms unlawfully adding extra trucks into the system.
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Eskom said in a statement on Monday that the suppliers at fault are Constructibility 10CC, Fastrak, IM Monokoane, NJM Transport, Lamavuso and Dhlams & Dhlams.
“Following a tip-off in July 2016… Eskom undertook a limited investigation into allegations that some (Free Carrier Arrangement) FCA transporters had unlawfully introduced additional trucks into the coal road transportation system,” explained Eskom acting CEO Matshela Koko.
“As a result of this investigation, six FCA transporters were suspended between 14 July and 7 September 2016, for seven weeks.”
“Considering the discrepancies that surfaced during this limited investigation, Eskom commissioned an independent investigation into the unlawful introduction of additional trucks by FCA transporters,” Koko said.
Koko said it has since emerged during the course of the secondary investigation that the conduct of the six transporters has severely prejudiced compliant FCA transporters.
“This conduct has gravely deprived compliant transporters to a fair and equitable distribution of coal that was available to be hauled to Eskom’s power stations,” Koko said.
Koko said Eskom will continue to make decisive decisions to ensure compliance with the policies of the utility so as to achieve “unimpeachable procurement decisions across the company’s entire value chain”.
Eskom currently moves about 40Mt of coal using two road transportation channels.
The first method is through the FCA, which involves transporters that are directly contracted to Eskom. There are currently 58 of these transporters running under a four year contract that commenced in April 2014, ending in March 2018.
The rest of the road deliveries are done by the mines through a model that is normally referred to as Delivered “DEL” within Eskom. In this instance, transporters are directly contracted to the mines for the delivery of coal as opposed to the ones directly contracted to Eskom (FCA).