A number of former Eskom board members can expect to be served with summons in the coming weeks as the parastatal seeks to claw back cash spent on their legal fees, some of it related to state capture matters.

Key among this group is the former chairman, Dr Ben Ngubane, from whom Eskom seeks repayment of R706,000.

The country's cash-strapped power utility confirmed that it had initiated legal proceedings to recover all of R1-million in total from Ngubane and two other former directors. It is also investigating similar payments involving several other former board members.

Ngubane, in response to questions from Daily Maverick, said he has not been served with summons as yet, but the parastatal has confirmed that its claim relates to legal fees that were allegedly irregularly paid on Ngubane's behalf by Eskom.

While it's a drop in the ocean of ongoing civil claims, confirmation of these proceedings against the former board members comes amid successive days of load-shedding and a spike in diesel costs as the power utility battles "wet coal" caused by sustained rain over the past week.

Ngubane was chairman of Eskom until 2017 when he resigned in the wake of the #Guptaleaks revelations and...