Eskom said on Friday 30 October 2026 that no diesel is missing and its tender award was sound, but payments and emergency approvals broke its rules.
The state-owned utility’s statement closes out a probe of its diesel supply and storage deals, which were let under Tender MWP2197GX. On 27 August 2026 it had promised to fix the governance gaps found by an independent forensic firm.
What the assessment found
According to Eskom, an outside audit firm could not find any diesel that was paid for and not delivered. Its lawyers could not substantiate the allegation that the Tender MWP2197GX award process was tainted.
The findings that stood up concern the stage after the award, when contracts are administered. Eskom listed payments made outside the contract terms, and emergency approvals given without following its Delegation of Authority.
The same kind of payment was made under the older contract with large fuel oil suppliers, which ran from 2019 to December 2024. Eskom’s Loss Control Function put irregular expenditure at about R38 billion in June 2026, the statement said.
Eskom tied the payments to January to March 2025, when unit breakdowns, late returns from maintenance and low pumped-storage reserves strained the system. Pressure of that kind, it said, does not remove the duty to follow internal controls.
What Eskom is changing
Eskom said it is reviewing its Delegations of Authority, the terms of reference of its Emergency Response Crisis Committee, its emergency powers and its procurement procedures. It described this as an ongoing process.
It also restored a check that it had dropped. In October 2022 Eskom shut the central panel that ran proactive assurance and full probity checks on deals above R500 million. It gave two reasons: cost, and few adverse findings in the high-value tenders reviewed. Audit firms then did narrower reviews, limited to bribery, fraud and money-laundering checks.
Full reviews came back from late 2025 for some of the previous year’s transactions, and since May 2026 they apply to every high-value tender. Eskom said a bidder that fails a mandatory requirement is now hard to recommend.
Eskom also amended its Delegation of Authority so the board does not take part in procurement decisions and only gives strategic guidance, such as approving procurement strategies. It said this follows the recommendation of the Zondo Commission that a company’s board should ideally stay out of procurement.
Where the evidence exists, Eskom said, it is applying consequence management to the findings. The statement names no person.
Where to report concerns
Eskom invited the public to report suspected wrongdoing through its whistleblowing channels and the Eskom Crime Line.
Eskom’s earlier statements on the probe are dated 22 April, 15 May, 29 June, 31 July and 27 August 2026. Read our report on the utility’s energy availability and diesel costs and its renewables partnership programme. The next step is the consequence management Eskom says it is carrying out on the substantiated findings, for which it gave no date.
