Engineering News

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has confirmed that it filed papers in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday in an application for a forfeiture order against global consultancy McKinsey.

Fin24 reported earlier this year that Eskom approached the court in a bid to recover funds from McKinsey for work it had done for the power utility. This was later found to be irregular. It is also looking into ways of recovering money from Gupta-linked company Trillian.

The power utility was trying to recover a total of R1.3-billion from the two companies.

"We filed papers yesterday for a forfeiture order," NPA spokesperson Luvuyo Mfaku confirmed on Thursday.

Mfaku said the NPA was applying for the order to recover money owed to the power utility. He said they were waiting for McKinsey to respond.

According to an Eskom spokesperson, Trillian maintains it supplied services to Eskom and honoured its obligations, and did not see the need to repay the power utility.

In April, Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe told Fin24: "We have approached the court in the last two weeks. Very soon we will hear from the courts when that will be heard, but we hope it will take place very soon."

"McKinsey has already indicated that they can pay back, but they are waiting (for) a court order directing them to do so," Phasiwe said.