Disgraced consulting firm McKinsey is still to make arrangements for the return of the cash it received from Eskom in an unlawful contract. A Business Day report says McKinsey has also declined to account for the R564m Eskom paid to the Gupta-linked Trillian, which initially had been introduced as McKinsey’s local supply development partner. The firm said it would pay back only the R1bn it had received from Eskom.

‘We were not responsible for, nor did we authorise, the fees paid to Trillian. Eskom paid Trillian directly,’ said McKinsey spokesperson Bonita Dordel. ‘Eskom has written to Trillian requesting repayment of the R564m. Bowmans, Eskom’s external counsel, has confirmed that there was no sub-contract between Trillian and McKinsey. McKinsey informed Eskom it was terminating its interactions with Trillian (before Eskom paid Trillian),’ she said.

The report notes during the six months up to February this year, Eskom paid the two firms more than R1.6bn for work they said would help the utility cut costs and develop internal engineering consulting capacity. However, Eskom has admitted it should not have entered into the contract nor paid the firms as it had failed to seek or obtain approval from the Treasury.

Asked when it would pay back the money, Dordel said: ‘We can confirm that we will be repaying the fees from the Eskom turnaround programme contract no matter what. We will repay them either to Eskom via a High Court process or we will act independently and return them to the Republic of SA,’ Dordel said.

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