An energy CEO poisoned with a cyanide-laced coffee joked that you should 'never have a personalized mug' in an explosive interview on South African TV
REUTERS
- Andre De Ruyter, CEO of South African energy giant Eskom, was poisoned with cyanide in December.
- He joked Tuesday that you should "never have a personalized mug" after poison was slipped into his coffee.
- In the same interview, De Ruyter made a series of explosive claims about corruption in the industry.
Andre De Ruyter, the South African energy executive who made global headlines after being poisoned with cyanide, recommended never having a personalized mug at work in an interview broadcast this week.
De Ruyter, CEO of energy giant Eskom, was interviewed by journalist Annika Larsen, with the interview broadcast on South African TV on Tuesday. The interview was initially posted on YouTube but has since been deleted. Insider has viewed the interview, which was also reported by local South African publications.
On Monday, December 12, De Ruyter met with Eskom's chairman to hand in his letter of resignation, but just hours later was poisoned when he drank a coffee apparently laced with cyanide. De Ruyter's resignation wasn't publicly known at the time he was poisoned, and he wasn't scheduled to depart from his role until March 2023.
In the interview aired Tuesday, De Ruyter went into further detail about the day of his poisoning.
After taking a number of meetings with government ministers online — including energy minister Gwade Mantashe — in his office at Eskom's headquarters, De Ruyter said he asked his personal assistant for a coffee.
The office coffee machine was broken that day and being fixed so his assistant left his mug "unattended" there to ask him if she could make instant coffee instead, he said.
"So this is a recommendation and a learning that I can share, never have a personalized mug. It's a bad idea."
He said: "By the time she came back, the machine had been repaired, and a coffee was then presented to me. I then drank this coffee and didn't notice anything amiss."
De Ruyter said after 15 to 20 minutes he started feeling extremely "nauseous" and "confused." He was sitting in front of a colleague and was finding it difficult to remember the right word for "power station."
"I started gasping for air. I was panting and then I said: 'There's something wrong here, I need to get to a doctor quickly,'" he said adding that his security rushed him to a doctor.
After running some tests, doctors were able to identify that he had been poisoned and give him treatment, he said.
He later consulted a specialist toxicologist who theorized that it wasn't "a pure cyanide cocktail" but instead a mixture of cyanide and sodium arsenite — a common ingredient in rat poison — to "mask the detectability of cyanide in a blood test."
De Ruyter added that he had "no idea" who poisoned him but one of the individuals who fixed the machine had "absconded from work" and "disappeared."
As well as giving more detail about the day of his poisoning, De Ruyter used the interview to make a series of explosive allegations about corruption in South African politics. De Ruyter claimed that one "high-level politician" is directly involved in corruption, but said that when he raised this with a minister, it was brushed aside.
De Ruyter also further discussed the impact of criminal activity in South African energy, including the well-documented looting of Eskom coal plants by gangs, per a report from the Financial Times.
Soon after the interview aired, Eskom announced that De Ruyter would leave the firm with "immediate effect," rather than working until March.
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