- Eskom's former CEO plans to "lay low" and go abroad for a while after cyanide poisoning.
- Andre De Ruyter told the Financial Times that he's losing his bodyguard after being fired.
The South African energy executive who was poisoned with cyanide-laced coffee in December said he plans to "lay low" having been stripped of his company bodyguard after being fired last week.
In an interview published by the Financial Times on Thursday, Andre De Ruyter, the former CEO of South Africa's biggest energy firm, Eskom, said that his dismissal from the company with "immediate effect" following an explosive TV interview last week means he'll no longer have a bodyguard paid for.
"I may go abroad for a while, but I have no intention of leaving the country," he said when asked whether he's going to flee South Africa. "I'll just watch out for who invites me to coffee."
De Ruyter, who handed in his resignation as CEO in December just hours before he was poisoned, was supposed to serve till the end of March 2023. However, after making a series of explosive allegations about corruption in an interview with journalist Annika Larsen, he was pushed out of the company.
In the interview, De Ruyter said he raised concerns about a "high-level" politician being involved in corruption to his boss Pravin Gordhan — South Africa's public enterprises minister — but was ignored.
De Ruyter clarified to the FT that the poisoning incident was "indeed an attempted murder, not just a warning," according to his toxicologist.
He described the incident in greater detail in his TV interview, saying his personal assistant had served him instant coffee because the coffee machine at Eskom's headquarter was being repaired.
After drinking the beverage he became confused, nauseous and was struggling to breathe. He was eventually rushed to his personal doctor by his security detail.
"Cyanide is not like I take out a gun and I should you in the foot," he said adding that if it was not for his doctor injecting him with vitamin B, he probably would have died.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has previously addressed the dangers of working at Eskom saying that one manager "wears a bulletproof vest to work" and keeps two bodyguards at all times.
Since De Ruyter was appointed as CEO in 2019, he has tried to clamp down on corruption in the energy sector. He told the FT that criminal gangs loot Eskom's coal plants forcing the company to impose power cuts.
He also pointed to South Africa's governing party, the African National Congress, for the power shortages saying "it's a little bit like a Venn Diagram."
"There might be pure criminals and pure politicians. And then there's an area in the middle where the interests of the two intersect."