Is it possible that the allegedly corrupt Eskom Executive Karen Pillay, since not a ‘black- African’, shares in superior race privilege hence the muted, managed subdued anger and outrage?

By: Clyde N.S Ramalaine 

The alleged sophisticated criminal enterprise of an Eskom Executive known as Advocate Karen Pillay is since the last 48hrs running wild on social media. At last, an executive is directly linked to the agony of our intermittent power supply, an untenable situation that destroyed hundreds of businesses, literally annihilated millions of jobs, robbed family members of their loved ones because a ventilator was not able to work, and load shedding continues constricting meaningful life as our collective our daily curse. I have not alluded to the loss of billions in economic activity and threats of a power grid failure that have the average person stressed out and befuddled.

Yet I am compelled to flag what I observe, which attempts to present the contrasts of a South African society in its daily life and discourse on corruption again as not exempted from the toxic subject of race.

Let me dare to ask that we be honest when the idea of a corrupt executive at Eskom whose WhatsApp messages have identified her was first raised; it was assumed this person was ‘black- African.’

I deliberately use ‘black African,’ ‘white,’ ‘Coloured,’ and ‘Indian,’ whatever these mean in our evolving society where we live shackled in schisms and shibboleths of constructs we are made to worship yet never interrogate. Unlike apartheid and the Post 1994 states who pretend they know the difference between their easily appropriated racialised identity markers, I do not pretend to know how to distinguish between groups. I use them as State led content of identity marking not because I remotely endorse these notions of ‘black’ and ‘African’ in singleness of description or the congregated sense of expression, but because the 1994 and beyond ANC-led State in an uncritical mind made it legislation and its means for governance for our social identity marking. I have consistently held that these constructs were uncritically borrowed from the apartheid anthropology never engaged and have come to define humanity’s totality in South Africa.

I would much rather talk of categories of groups better understood: colonial and apartheid beneficiaries and victims, post-apartheid beneficiaries versus post-apartheid marginalized groups, and the buffer zone group detailing those who owe their financial existence to colonial and apartheid financial dry-cleaning. However, since we are still to engage as afforded by the State the identity markers in soberness of their unsustainability and in the sincerity of admitting its historical and new anomalies, we are obliged to use the official statecraft of identity marking.

I am known to have challenged these constructs since they all have the scientifically debunked notion of race as their conjoining departure point, if not central axis. Race, first formalised by 18th Century philosopher Imannuel Kant with his infamous 1785 German published Rassen Articles detailing the fulcrum of eugenist ideology and thought, was scientifically debunked by the end of World War 11. Yet, race continues to exist in social construction as that which separates, distinguishes, threatening to define an essence and purportedly explains our difference through sophistications of othering where our idea of who we are makes up the base.  Yet let me park this topic for now and get back to Karen Pillay, the advocate and Eskom Executive who depicts the epitome of greed at the expense of a nation.

I will postulate that the assumption of corruption as synonymous with a ‘black-African’ identity is, in 2023, a successfully crafted, politically coordinated, systemically sustained, and colloquially regurgitated metanarrative driven by a particular ‘white’ agenda that continues to control the high towers in all spheres and spaces where discourse meanders and is shaped. An agenda that sells ignorant and absent-minded ones the snake oil foolishness of ‘whites’ as naturally, historically, and currently representing the antithesis of corruption; therefore, the custodians of morality thus inalienable corruption busters to be trusted implicitly anywhere, anytime, and everywhere.

In the upkeep of my deduction, as mentioned above, you understand how South African society functions on corruption and what it means in identity marking better when you pause to appreciate a monumental moment, albeit semi-forgotten, in Eskom history as recently shared. You will recall that Business Leaders South Africa [BLSA] admitted and defended its actions to be part of a clandestine investigation into Eskom corruption. The story goes that BLSA, based on kamikaze preliminary ‘intelligence’, was approached by the dicey and self-revealing, high in lack of accountability former CEO Andre De Ruyter to sponsor his vision to conduct a clandestine investigation in Eskom. BLSA, without any due diligence, availed R50 million to what I have categorically dubbed a failure of a CEO in De Ruyter if his SASOL and Nampak histories were made the yardstick. BLSA availed the money to finance De Ruyter’s great escape from accountability its legs as a phantom policeman of corruption. I have said that if any ‘black African’ CEO of any state-owned entity had gone to BLSA requesting a mere R500k, they would have been scrutinized and outed as corrupt. So why did Andre De Ruyter, notwithstanding his spectacular failure as a CEO, receive this money from BLSA?

May I postulate that he was trusted with R50 million because he shared in the ‘white’ identity marking, which imbibes a natural privilege in the Southland of Africa? Secondly, de Ruyter received the money because he was going after ‘black-African’ corrupt Eskom saboteurs. You know this from whom [A known apartheid operator Tony Oosthuizen] he contracted and relied upon for his ‘intelligence,’ as mentioned by Jaques Pauw. Thirdly from the first and second, he was going to solidify and prove the dualism of a fallacy of ‘black-African’ corruption and ‘white’ corruption-buster status. BLSA was sponsoring R50m to keep the forced dominant narrative of ‘black-African’ corruption and ‘white’ corruption-buster notions alive.

In this sense, I am to enquire if the convenient silence and lack of justifiable venom for what Eskom Senior Security Manager Advocate Karen Pillay stands accused of not depicting classical South African minds held carceral in scripted racist preconceived notions of racialized corruption.

As the night falls on the second day of her unveiling, there appears in some circles a strange sadness that the identity of Karen Pillay, is not ‘black-African. Pillay who stands accused of sabotage, is responsible for the deliberate destruction of Eskom conveyor belts, stations and other hardware so business enterprises linked to her may benefit from contracts to remedy the damages. These allegations are treasonous for her greed and corrupt activities at the cost of life and limb, a devastated economy, and the StateState of SA as capable of providing the sustainable power supply, is not in the identity of black African, the usual suspect for corruption as led by a white agenda.

In my online search for any of the mainline media outlets, including the Daily Maverick, and AmaBhungane crowds, I could not find anything on the story of Advocate Pillay in any of these. I had expected editors to get their journalists to engage the accusations. Is this not corruption at Eskom that every media outlet serious about keeping leadership accountable would want to expose? Yet we found an eerie silence from the self-avowed exposers of corruption.

I finally found something on a Mamelodi Platform, really an opinion piece I will cite verbatim: ‘That someone could be Karen Pillay, the senior security manager at Eskom, who is also a close friend of Pravin Gordhan, the minister of public enterprises. Pillay is a former police officer and a former member of the Directorate of Special Operations, also known as the Scorpions, an elite anti-corruption unit that was disbanded in 2009. She joined Eskom in 2004 and rose to become the head of security, overseeing a budget of R3.2 billion a year for private security contractors.’

This is an opinion piece for the record, so it is not official and, therefore, subject to speculation. Yet, the writer tells us of a connection between Pillay and the serving Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan. I will not yet concur with the writer of the opinion piece since the content does not provide any hardcore evidence on such. However, suppose the connection between Karen Pillay and Gordhan exists, then we understand better why the media has gone silent in pursuing the story.

Pravin Gordhan is the darling of mainstream media, who perpetually overlooks his incompetence in leading the Public Enterprises ministry. Gordhan, the main actor for my gordhanism construct I crafted a couple of years ago, knows how to play the victim and bully when it suits him. At a time, it was alleged that Daily Maverick, who defies the death of print media, was directly associated with Gordhan, to the point that any negative press on him would never see the daylight.

I am compelled to ask, where are the voices of the self-appointed gurus of investigative journalism? These usually circulate in predatory vulture style on ‘black Africans’ without corroborating evidence. Some journalists would not spare ransacking the rubbish bin of an EFF leader, Julius Malema, to search for evidence. Yet, they are not even tweeting about the WhatsApp messages of Ms. Pillay, as alleged.

Where is the slew of hypocrites of civil society formations like the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, FUL, Section 27, Helen Suzman, Defenders of Democracy, OUTA, Nelson Mandela Foundation, CASAC, etc.? These readily join themselves to any court case, against, for example, former President Jacob Zuma.

For some, because she is identified as Indian, they can’t speak against their own. As we saw with the Phoenix Massacre, all ‘Indian’ interest-oriented and led organisations either closed ranks or conveniently looked the other way. Could the media and the cohort of the usual loudmouth foundations’ silence not perhaps explain a toxic and cross-pollinated ‘white’ and ‘Indian’ privilege connection that coalesced in post-apartheid South Africa?

On another level, is this why ‘Mr. Business’ Cas Coovadia could defend the BLSA for availing R50 million for this ‘white’-led driven, undercover investigation with a corrupt ‘black- African’ identity as its target to bring to the book. Defending and justifying this BLSA R50m sponsor was Cas Coovadia whom the state in social identity and race group identify as an ‘Indian’ not financing the dominant narrative of a ‘black-African’ identity as the signpost of SOE corruption? Troublesome as they are we warrant asking Coovadia and his ilk these questions because for too long many like him have escaped scrutiny.

More than ten years ago, I penned a piece, ‘Comrades…? Alternatively, Calculated Investors In The Black Liberation Struggle? with a subtheme: “White privilege” & “Indian cuisine’s” investment in the Liberation Struggle a blue chip stock, paying off handsomely-

As such, I had contended apartheid’s identity markers of ‘white’ and ‘Indian’ were but investors in a ‘black’ struggle whose ROI proved lucrative. Apartheid could never deny white traitors their white identity, these remained white, and from that whiteness, they continued to rule any black group or organisation they ever entered. In apartheid Indians made up in racial hierarchy the second to white identity marking. In case you forgot apartheid in education spend per child detailed in approximations R850 per ‘white’, R570 per ‘Indian’, R375 per ‘Coloured’ and R195 per ‘black’, Bantu or ‘African’ child.

Then as to today, I will assert my claim that Indian cuisine investment is not that extraordinary when the late Ms Cachalia in her book let us into how she spoke to Mandela (a man smitten with her) to arrange a diplomatic posting for her. This conversation had to include a discussion with the late Alfred Nzo (then Minister of Foreign Affairs), who requested her CV. Mrs. Cachalia liberally shares her mind as I quote her verbatim “I told Nzo that probably like me, he had no CV too – and the struggle was our CV. I also reminded him of the years that Yusuf (Cachalia) had groomed him when Alfred was still wet behind his ears.”

This is a mouthful glaring and lets us into the psyche of my ‘Indian’ cuisine privilege investment in the ‘black-African’ struggle and its leaders by which, when the time comes, they can claim a right to be rewarded in somewhat a disdain disrespect of leadership’s position. Mrs. Cachalia feared not to invoke the investment her late husband made in “grooming” Nzo, who was “wet behind the ears.” It says what did you know that we did not teach you?

So, Adv. Pillay is treated in media space with kid gloves, given her assumed Indian identity. She is treated with arguably an undeserving dignity juxtaposed to the usual indignation served on ‘black-Africans’ by the schizophrenic, often veiled racists, self-appointed custodians of justice, and a constitution usually overeager prepare the gallows with the slightest evidence.

I must surmise that corruption and the ‘black African’ identity will, for a long time, continue to be synonymous since we, despite our agency, refuse to think and lack the heart to be honest, to engage the jagged-edged contradictions of our society. If the rules of the usual jungle are consistently applied as exacted by the jaundiced ones, Pillay must be vilified, condemned, arrested, tried, and banished to a prison cell to rot. Unless the champions of Eskom corruption busting are not serious or conveniently racist to uphold the idea of a black-African executive as the signpost of corruption. If she identifies as ‘black,’ let her be subjected to the same treatment black- Africans get when suspected of corruption.

We must ask why we as a society in the alledgedly corrupt Karen Pillay detail indifferent; so obviously, in Pavlovian theory, classically conditioned and strangely comfortable not to ask that consistency on corruption be made the order of the day.

In the case of Pillay, expect to hear that one is innocent until proven guilty, while ‘black- Africans’ are guilty until proven innocent. This is the corruption busting BSLA funds, and this is corruption mainstream media and the convenient loudmouth civil society formations are silent when the perpetrator is not ‘black-African.’ This is also the corruption Indian interest and led organisations are silent when one of their own is accused.

Eskom corruption threatens again a case of ‘white’ privilege and ‘Indian’ cuisine detailing investors in a ‘black -African’ struggle that gets handsomely rewarded.