Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan emerges as a scared and immobilised man in André de Ruyter's tell-all memoir.

As Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan is due to appear before Parliament to answer questions about corruption at Eskom, former Eskom boss André de Ruyter has set the cat among the pigeons.

On Page 282 of his book, Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom, he says both Gordhan and the national security adviser, Sydney Mufamadi, knew that two high-ranking politicians had links to cartels that extract more than R1-billion from Eskom every month.

"In the vacant office of the Eskom chairman, I told Gordhan and Mufamadi what the investigators had unearthed, but paused before dropping the biggest bombshell -- the fact that two high-ranking politicians had been implicated," he writes.

"'Can I name them?' I asked Gordhan, accompanied by one of his advisers. The minister indicated I should go ahead.

"I expected him to be shocked, but instead his reaction surprised me. Gordhan looked over at Mufamadi and said, 'Well, I guess it was inevitable that it would come out.' They had known or suspected all along," writes De Ruyter.

Earlier this month, De Ruyter calculated that rent extraction, corruption, and procurement patronage were still costing Eskom billions of rands, even though the high State Capture period...