Embattled former African National Congress MP Brian Molefe will make his first public appearance as the reinstated Eskom chief executive when he addresses the opening session at the African Utility Week conference and expo in Cape Town next week on Tuesday.
The 17th annual African Utility Week is a flagship energy event that will gather over 7000 decision-makers from more than 80 countries to source the latest solutions and meet over 300 suppliers.
The conference programme will address the latest problems, developments, and opportunities in the power and water sectors, ranging from generation to transmission and distribution, metering, technology, and water. The conference will also be addressed by Eskom board chairman Ben Ngubane and Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown.
Molefe, who left Eskom under a cloud following the release of the public protector’s report into state capture late last year, resigned on Friday as MP after only three months on the ANC benches. At Parliament, Molefe earned just over R100,000 a month as an MP whereas he was earning R792‚000 monthly at Eskom, excluding bonuses.
Prior to President Jacob Zuma’s late-night Cabinet reshuffle in March, Molefe was widely tipped as the country’s next finance minister but the post went to Malusi Gigaba.
The public protector’s report raised questions about Molefe’s proximity to members of the wealthy, politically connected Gupta family, and that the Eskom leadership had stretched procurement rules to give a multi-million rand coal contract to the Guptas’ Tegeta Exploration and Resources company.
In the wake of the public protector’s report, Molefe resigned “in the interest of good corporate governance” and to “clear” his name. About three months later, in February, Molefe was sworn in as an ANC MP. Subsequently, it emerged that Eskom was about to pay Molefe a R30 million pension pay-out after he applied for early retirement, despite the fact that he had resigned.
Brown objected to the proposal and asked for the Eskom board’s reasoning in formulating the proposed pension payout, as she could not support it. The Eskom board said it decided to rescind his application for early retirement because it could not agree with him on “a mutually beneficial pension proposal”, and then negotiated for him to return to finish his contract which ends in September 2020.
News that Molefe would be returning to Eskom on Monday sparked outrage in the governing ANC and opposition parties, business leadership, trade unions, and civil rights groups due to the adverse findings in the public protector’s report. The ANC condemned as “unfortunate and reckless” the decision by the Eskom board to reinstate Molefe, saying that it would seek engagement with Brown about its rationality.
But on Friday Brown went against the party line and said she believed Molefe’s return to Eskom was a “better value proposition to the South African fiscus that the previous pension proposal”.
The Democratic Alliance said it would approach the courts for a judicial review to set aside Molefe’s “redeployment” to Eskom. The DA also called for a full-scale parliamentary inquiry into the matter. The National Union of Mineworkers said Molefe’s return to Eskom was a “joke” while the SA Federation of Trade Unions called for the power utility’s board to be sacked. The National Union of Metalworkers of SA said since Molefe’s voluntary resignation last year the cloud of corruption over his head had not been cleared. Numsa viewed his reinstatement as an attempt by the power utility to “dry clean Molefe of the stench of corruption which still lingered following the damning allegations in the public protector’s state of capture report”.
Business Unity South Africa expressed “grave concern” over the decision to reinstate Molefe, saying it flew in the face of the public protector’s report and was not in line with the expected levels of accountability and ethical leadership.
But Eskom board spokesperson Khulani Qoma said on Friday the power utility could not sanction Molefe over an “inconclusive report”.
“When [Molefe] stepped down the board was not in agreement; it grudgingly accepted that he was stepping down. The state of capture [report] is actually not a conclusive document and we will have a conversation if it gets concluded at the point when it does, if it does,” Qoma said. “As it stands, we cannot hang him on the basis of the [public protector’s] report which is admittedly not conclusive.”
Meanwhile, Matshela Koko who replaced Molefe in an acting capacity is currently the subject of an investigation launched into allegations that his step-daughter was a director of Impulse International when it was awarded several contracts worth around R1 billion by Eskom.
As Molefe returns to Eskom, Koko has agreed to go on leave, as an investigation by a legal firm appointed to probe a possible conflict of interest against him has asked for more time to complete its investigation.
– African News Agency (ANA)
