Good corporate governance requires an organisation’s leadership to “set the tone at the top” and oversee the management of ethics, make ethical decisions and lead by example. Eskom’s board is accountable for Eskom’s ethics management programme. Operational responsibilities lie with Exco, and all leaders and managers in the organisation.

Assistance and advice is also available from the ethics office, which forms part of the functions of the company secretary. The ethics office assists the chief executive in setting the framework, rules, standards and boundaries for ethical behaviour, and provides ethics training and an advisory service to employees, assisting them in dealing effectively with ethics issues and ethical dilemmas in the workplace.

The Eskom code of ethics, The Way, was revised during the year to reflect two newly approved Eskom values, new Companies Act provisions and the King III requirements. The supplementary ethics code procedure was also revised and approved by the board for implementation. This procedure assists directors and employees to apply the code of ethics in their daily activities and decision making to deal with specific ethics issues in the workplace; and to offer compliance information on other ethics-related policies.

Eskom’s conflict of interest policy, the declaration of interest procedure, the electronic declaration form, and declaration monitoring procedure have all been revised in line with the new Companies Act and King III, and approved for implementation. A separate electronic declaration system and procedure for board members has also been implemented to replace the manual process for declaring interests and business courtesies. Eskom is also a signatory to the UN Global Compact which includes an anti-corruption clause, as well as the World Economic Forum’s partnership against corruption initiative.

The board and Exco are kept informed of Eskom’s ethical culture and issues of concern through quarterly ethics status reports.