The parliamentary inquiry into Eskom on Thursday adjourned till January, with an undertaking that the Gupta brothers and Deputy Public Enterprises Minister Ben Martins will appear before it for questioning in the new year.
In Martins’s case, the committee vowed to subpoena him after he sent a letter saying he would not come to testify but would make a written submission
The chairwoman of the inquiry, Zukiswa Rantho, said it was unfortunate that fellow members of Parliament had failed to respect its work.
“Now we will subpoena them, and we will have to start with a member of government,” she said, referring to the deputy minister who was fingered by Eskom’s suspended head of legal, Suzanne Daniels, in her testimony last month.
Daniels told the inquiry Martins was present, along with President Jacob Zuma’s son, Duduzane, when she was pressed by Ajay Gupta about the hearing dates for the court challenge to Eskom’s pension payout for former CEO Brian Molefe.
Martins has denied that he was present at the meeting.
In a letter to the committee, he complained that he was only given a day’s notice to come to testify, and said he would not.
“It is not necessary for me to appear the committee as I am responding to the committee in writing,” he wrote, adding that he reserved his rights.
Lawyers for the Gupta brothers, the businessmen alleged to have siphoned billions of rands off state-owned enterprises, sent a letter to the committee stating that the family would not available to appear before it between 8 December and 15 January. They demanded that the questions that would be put to them, be sent to them in writing in within 10 working days.
“To give Mr Gupta and his family an opportunity to provide written input to the inquiry, we call upon you to furnish us with a detailed list of questions. Please let us have this list within 10 working days.”
Democratic Alliance public enterprises spokeswoman Natasha Mazzone said she expected to see the brothers at the inquiry on January 16 and greatly looked forward to the encounter. The committee has also asked Duduzane Zuma, a shareholder in the Gupta family’s Tegeta Exploration, to appear for questioning.
The inquiry will also call suspended Eskom chief financial officer Anoj Singh in January, after sending him packing on Tuesday for handing them 400 pages of documentation at 11 pm on Monday night.
MPs said it was cheap delay tactic as they did not have time to peruse the documents properly, and Rantho resolved that he should return in the new year when members have had time to read the submission. It contained evidence, she said, for which the public enterprises committee has begged him for the past six months.
There have been continuous allegations of intimidation of the committee, and Rantho on Tuesday objected to the unannounced presence of a member of the Hawks in the hearing chamber.
– African News Agency (ANA),
