Michael Lomas gets suspended jail term after guilty plea in Eskom Kusile graft case
The 79-year-old former Eskom contractor at the centre of the Kusile graft probe, pleaded guilty in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on
Michael Lomas, the 79-year-old former Eskom contractor at the centre of the Kusile graft probe, pleaded guilty in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Thursday and walked away with a wholly suspended prison sentence. He admitted fraud, theft and corruption tied to the R1.4-billion upgrade of the Mpumalanga power station.
The case has shadowed one of South Africa’s most politically charged corruption scandals for years. Lomas acknowledged that he helped channel corrupt payments to senior Eskom officials to help Tubular Construction Projects secure work on the reduction of the air-cooled condensers at Kusile’s Units 4, 5 and 6.
Payments tied to the tender
In his plea statement, Lomas said he made 10 payments totalling R2 249 500 into Absa and Nedbank accounts intended for former Eskom manager Frans Hlakudi. He also paid out 24 monthly rents amounting to R396 559.88 for a Midrand property, which he said formed part of the corrupt arrangement for Hlakudi and another former senior Eskom manager, Abram Masango.
Those payments were linked to a larger stream of money connected to the R745-million payment Eskom made to Tubular Construction Projects for work at Kusile. The guilty plea closed one chapter of a long-running corruption matter that has drawn attention well beyond South Africa, where Eskom’s failures have helped deepen rolling power cuts and exposed the cost of graft in state-owned infrastructure projects.
Suspended term, no further jail time
According to the agreement before court, Lomas received 15 years’ imprisonment, suspended in full for five years. IOL reported that he will not spend another day in prison. His lawyer, Advocate Manny Witz, said after the hearing that the matter had been concluded and that the court had taken into account Lomas’ age and health, along with the plea deal and Eskom’s input.
The sentencing is a notable turn in a case that has helped define the public debate around procurement abuse at Eskom, the utility that supplies electricity to most of South Africa and remains central to the country’s economic stability. Kusile, one of Eskom’s flagship coal-fired stations, has become synonymous with delays, cost overruns and allegations of corruption.
Lomas’ admission places fresh focus on the network of payments that surrounded the tender. And it leaves the names of Hlakudi and Masango once again attached to one of the utility’s most damaging graft cases. The final figure now on record: a 15-year sentence, wholly suspended for five years.
