Johannesburg - Any involvement by President Jacob Zuma in the saga relating to Jacob Maroga's departure as Eskom CEO has been carefully withheld from court documents Maroga submitted in his claim for R85.7m from Eskom.
There is only one casual reference to Zuma in Maroga's voluminous statement: that he paid a visit to Zuma on November 8 last year and that Barbara Hogan, Minister of Public Enterprises, had tried to keep him away from the president but did not succeed.
Maroga said that while he was on his way to the presidency he received a message from the minister's cellphone that read the president's office said there was no further need for a meeting with Zuma.
That was totally untrue, Maroga argued.
He declined to say what he discussed with the president, but on the next morning, Monday, November 9, Maroga went to work for the first time in more than a week.
The court documents contain no indication of the reasons given by Bobby Godsell, the chairperson, for his resignation the same day: the government, as shareholder, had not supported the board's decision to terminate Maroga's service.
In fact the statement reflected that Hogan, her deputy, Enoch Godongwana, various board members and even senior public officials such as Portia Molefe, director-general of public enterprises, repeatedly tried to persuade Maroga to resign.
The court documents also showed that Maroga was planning to flatten out Eskom's top management. He wanted to do this so that he could become more involved in the utility's pivotal business units - such as systems operations, cash management and funding, primary energy (coal) and the construction programme.
According to the court documents Brian Dames, one of two chief officers at Eskom, threatened to resign because Maroga wanted to dispense with the two positions.
The beginning of the end
The drama started on October 28 2009, when the board was to meet for two days to discuss strategy.
But early on the first day the meeting degenerated into a debate on the relationship between Maroga and Godsell and differences between the two. At one point Godsell suggested that Maroga and he leave the meeting, but Maroga flatly denied that this was because he had offered his resignation, as the board later claimed.
On the same evening Godsell and Maroga, as well as two board members, Lars Josefsson and Daniel Dube, had gone to a Sandton restaurant for a meal so that Josefsson could convey the board's decisions to them.
According to Josefsson the board wanted to retain Godsell as chairperson, and Maroga to vacate his post.
Maroga said that the board had decided that relations between Godsell and himself had irretrievably broken down.
According to Josefsson, the board had also considered and decided to accept his "magnanimous offer" (to resign); Godsell was to set in motion a process to "communicate" the decision.
The board's action indicated to Maroga that he was being fired and that the dismissal was being covered up as an opportunistic resignation.
Early the next morning Hogan met Godsell and Maroga at Megawatt Park to discuss the crisis. Maroga was armed with a letter in which he expressly stated that he had never offered to resign.
Godsell informed Hogan that Maroga was the reason that he (Godsell) had developed shingles, that he had not invited Godsell to a meeting with the portfolio chairperson for public enterprises, and that Dames had threatened to resign because Maroga wanted to dispense with the chief officer two positions.
The members of the board met elsewhere in the building and Maroga went there to personally hand each member a copy of his letter. The board then spent the entire remainder of the day "behind closed doors" with Hogan, leaving Maroga out.
When Maroga turned up for work the next day, Godsell was already in a meeting with Eskom's executive committee.
Maroga addressed the committee as well, and informed them that he had not resigned.
The next day, Friday October 30, Josefsson wrote Maroga a letter on behalf of the board in which he said that Maroga's resignation on October 20 had been clear and unequivocal. But, in the event of the resignation possibly not being valid, the board in any event terminated his services on the grounds of incompetence in the light of poor performance.
The letter was however handed to Maroga only on Monday, November 2.
- Sake24.com
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