Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen said on Wednesday that his party would make an urgent request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) for Eskom management to reveal the name of an African National Congress (ANC) MP who is allegedly involved in corruption at the embattled State-owned enterprise.

In a recent interview, outgoing Eskom CEO André de Ruyter stated that a high-level ANC MP was behind the looting at Eskom.

He said the ANC views Eskom as a feeding trough and added that he had pointed out to a Cabinet Minister “that there was one particular high-level politician that was involved in this.”

De Ruyter explained that instead of taking his claim seriously, the Minister apparently said “I guess it was inevitable that this would come out anyway”, indicating that the ANC is well aware of the person's identity.

Steenhuisen said in the interests of accountability, transparency and combating ANC corruption, which he said was responsible for the loadshedding crisis, the party’s PAIA request would compel Eskom management to not only make public the name of the senior ANC politician concerned, but would also compel it to hand over all information and evidence regarding the ANC’s alleged involvement in corruption at Eskom.

The DA urged Eskom management to comply with its request for information and Steenhuisen insisted the party would use all means at its disposal to get to “the bottom of the criminal ANC syndicate behind Eskom corruption”.

“Should this information be verified through our PAIA request, De Ruyter’s revelations will provide inconvertible proof that the ANC stands as accused number one for the collapse of the South African electricity system and the suffering this inflicts on the 60-million people of this country,” he said.